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Remembering Eddie Hibbert

Editor, Our Time Press
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Remembering Eddie Hibbert

He led a varied accomplished life of Service and Grace; a life played out on the corner of Greene and Grand Avenue bordering the historic neighborhoods of Clinton Hill and Bedford Stuyvesant. Grand Ave was the last location in Bedford Stuyvesant where he plied his Antique trading business.


Long before his storied last life phase as Antique dealer, Eddie served with Honors for ten years as one of New York City’s Bravest. He retired as a New York City Fire Marshall at local Ladder #123, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, N.Y.C.


Our decades long friendship began with a shared love of Antiquities, specifically period Furniture, Real Estate and Horticulture. It was deepened by a mutual love of our neighborhood Community Gardens and, I am humbled for his deepest appreciation, in particular, for the neighborhood Community Gardens under my Stewardship.


Eddie was so much more than his stock -in-trade: he had a heightened appreciation for the Arts, the Sciences and the written word. He’s known to have spent a significant amount of time in the local library reading and researching many subjects he found fascinating.


Humble in his demeanor and public persona — and even though he walked, associated and interacted with folks in government as well as folks in so-called high society — his heart belonged to us, the common Man and Woman. He treated us with the utmost respect and, I daresay, love. We knew our place in Eddie’s heart.

He treated his people the best way – we received the best and the most affordable prices when we shopped at his hiding-in-plain-sight-emporium at Greene and Grand Avenue, a corner he held down for many years until gentrification hastened his exit from the community, much to our chagrin.


Eddie’s presence will forever prevail not only in the Community, but in our hearts and homes. In fact, his memory prevails at my personal residence – most everything at my home was sourced from Eddie’s Greene Avenue location.
After closing Shop, he retired. Between trips upstate to Troy, New York, looking for the perpetual Fixer Upper (we shared that in common), Eddie was called home a month before his Bornday month – September 15.


Eddie’s passing has left a tremendous hole not only in our hearts, but it’s also left a vacuum — not easily filled, in our collective life. His mentoring and guidance in all things that contributed to our way of life in Clinton Hill and Bedford Stuyvesant will be the legacy that endures!
Ride on my Friend, Ride On!

Footnote: The Vulcan Society will hold a Public Acknowledgement of his lifelong service and contributions to the community, on the Third Sunday in November, between 1-2:00 p.m at St. Phillips Episcopal Church, 334 MacDonough Street, Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn N.Y.

“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others”.
Booker T. Washington

NYC Voters Choose Mamdani’s Four Pillar Affordability Mandate

Mary Alice Miller
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NYC Voters Choose Mamdani’s Four Pillar Affordability Mandate

By Mary Alice Miller
The next mayor of New York City made history on Tuesday. At 34 years old Zohran Mamdani became the youngest NYC mayor-elect in 100 years. He is the first Muslim, first South Asian, and the first born in Africa (Uganda) to be elected mayor of New York City.
Mamdani’s campaign rested on four pillars: affordable food, housing, transportation, and childcare. By contrast, Cuomo focused on crime.


Democratic Socialist Mamdani won with 50.4% over moderate Cuomo’s 41.6% and Sliwa’s 7.1%, more than twice his opponents combined. Mayor Eric Adams, who had dropped out of the race but was still on the ballot, garnered 0.3% of the vote.


The election itself also broke historical records. Almost 750,000 came out to vote during the General Election’s nine-day Early Voting period, with Brooklyn once again taking the lead in turnout. Overall, more than 2 million voted, including Tuesday’s General Election, the most since 1969.


On Election Night, Mamdani addressed the crowd that was representative of the diversity of NYC.
Relegating disgraced former New York governor Cuomo to the dust bin of history, Mamdani said during his victory speech, “We have toppled a political dynasty. I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life.” He then quoted socialist Eugene Debs, stating, “Let tonight be the final time I utter his name, as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.”


In response to Trump’s day before the General Election endorsement of Cuomo, Mamdani said, “If there is any way to terrify a despot, is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.” He then added, “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.”


House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who endorsed Mamdani just before the commencement of Early Voting, said affordability was “definitely the decisive issue” in Tuesday’s elections and that Democratic candidates “leaned in aggressively on driving down the high cost of living and addressing the affordability crisis.”


Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Chair of the New York State Democratic Party Jay Jacobs did not issue an endorsement in the mayoral race, possibly in part due to Mamdani’s unapologetic defense of the human rights of Gaza Palestinians as well as Mamdani’s Democratic Socialist affiliation.


“This overwhelming victory is a clear mandate for a democratic socialist agenda to make New York City one that people can afford,” said Gustavo Gordillo, NYC-DSA Co-Chair. “Throughout the campaign, Zohran has said that NYC-DSA is his political home. We’re proud of the NYC-DSA members who helped power his campaign, from developing an optimistic, pro-working class agenda to building a historic field operation that boasted over 100,000 unique volunteers by the time polls closed on Election Night. MAGA billionaires spent millions to prop up Andrew Cuomo and try to stop this movement, but we’ve proved once again: they have money, but we have power,” he said.


“New York has become a playground for the rich, where everyday people are priced out of the city we built,” said NYC-DSA co-chair Grace Mausser. “This affordability crisis is in overdrive as the real estate industry, banks, corporations, and their allies in the corrupt political establishment put profits over people. We are now in a position to reclaim our dignity as working people by building an economy that works for the working class.”


“The work isn’t over,” Mausser continued, commenting on what’s next for NYC-DSA. “Passing the affordability agenda won’t happen overnight. We’re already preparing to do what must be done to organize our neighbors and deliver the affordable New York City that voters have demanded with such resounding force.”


In other New York City races, Jumaane Williams won re-election as public advocate. Mark Levine won election as comptroller. Vanessa Gibson won re-election as Bronx borough president. Antonio Reynoso was re-elected as Brooklyn borough president. Brad Hoylman-Sigal was elected Manhattan borough president. Donovan Richards was re-elected as Queens borough president. Vito Fossella was re-elected as Staten Island borough president. Alvin Bragg was re-elected as Manhattan DA.


In Central Brooklyn Council races incumbents easily won re-election.
Crystal Hudson (Council District 35) won re-election with 67.06% of the votes. Hudson is in the running for Council Speaker. If elected Speaker, Brooklyn would be a welcome home as the seat of Council power.


Chi Ajani Osse (Council District 36) was re-elected with 99.39% of the vote. Sandy Nurse (Council District 37) was re-elected with 74.72% of the vote. Rita Joseph (Council District 40) was re-elected with 74.47% of the vote. Darlene Mealy (Council District 41) was re-elected with 93.08% of the vote. Chris Banks (Council District 42) was re-elected with 95.61% of the vote. Farah Louis was re-elected with 84.44% of the vote. Mercedes Narcisse was re-elected with 67.76% of the vote.


Ballot proposal 1 passed to Allow an Olympic Sports Complex in Essex County on State Forest Preserve Land. New Yorkers voted to approve Ballot Proposals 2-5: Fast Track Affordable Housing, to Simplify Housing and Infrastructure Review, to Establish an Affordable Housing Appeals Board, and to Create a Digital City Map. By a margin of almost 100,000 votes, New Yorkers voted against Ballot Proposal 6: Moving Local Elections to Presidential Election Years.


Across the country, Democratic wins suggest voted disenchantment with Trump.
Mikie Sherrill won the race for governor of New Jersey. Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor election and Jay Jones won the Virginia attorney general race.


And in direct opposition to Trump, California voters said “yes” to Proposition 50, which will allow state legislators to redistrict before the midterm elections, an effort to counter GOP-led gerrymandering in other states like Texas.

Justice for Garvey

Brenda Greene
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Justice for Garvey

Not only did I greatly admire Garvey, but his conviction also represented one of the most poignant examples of the injustice that the law can exert on an individual’s life trajectory and indeed the trajectory of thousands of people who follow that person if the individual is a political leader.
Justin Hansford, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law
Executive Director, Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center

There have been many books written about Marcus Mosiah Garvey; Justice for Marcus Garvey, Look For Me In The Whirlwind (Broadleaf, 2024), a book of essays with a foreword by TaNehisi Coates and edited by Julius Garvey the son of Marcus Garvey, presents readers with an update on the rationale for pardoning Garvey and on the history, analysis, and impact of Marcus Garvey, an international social justice leader committed to a Pan Africanist philosophy embedded in the principles of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Justice for Marcus Garvey is a “Call of Action” from Black journalists, publishers, booksellers, activists, lawyers, and scholars who have advocated and signed petitions for Garvey’s full exoneration.


Efforts to exonerate Garvey began 100 years ago on June 21, 1923 when he was found guilty of mail fraud. He was 36 years when he was indicted and the call to exonerate him took many forms over the years. Howard University Law Professor Hansford’s statement describing his indictment as a travesty of injustice speaks to the core principles underlying the “Call to Action for Marcus Garvey.”


In the foreword, TaNehisi Coates argues that we need a counternarrative that represents Garvey’s wrongful indictment and that Garvey’s philosophy has become a part of hip hop culture. He asks readers to analyze “Halftime” by Nas, “Malcolm, Garvey, and Huey” by Dead Pretz, and “The Blacker the Berry” by Kendrick Lamar. What also comes to mind for me is the signature album “Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star.” Coates notes that “Garvey is in reggae, our jazz, our art, our writing, our politics, and our way of seeing the world.”


A uniqueness of Julius Garvey’s book is the cross-range of oral history essays from a core of publishers, booksellers, journalists, and activists who give personal testimonies on how Garvey’s philosophy and world view influenced their publishing, bookselling, writing, and personal lives.

The book begins with essays in a section titled, “The Exoneration Effort and Why.” It continues with the sections “Understanding the Legal Wrong and the Effort to Right It”, “Garvey’s Activism in Jamaica,” and “Garvey Lives.” Julius Garvey also provides readers with an extensive bibliography of additional readings about Garvey and the legal issues surrounding his attempts to fight the indictment.


In the section “The Exoneration Effort and Why,” Paul Coates, the founder and publisher of Black Classic Press, reminds readers that “Garvey’s enthusiastic and unapologetic promotion of positive Black images and literature is the model adhered to by the most enduring Black book publishers in the US. Haki Madhubuti, the founder and publisher of Third World Press states “ It is difficult to be psychologically and culturally Black and politically and economically serious in America and not have been influenced by Garvey’s philosophy and actions.”

Karl B. Rodney, the co-founder of Carib News, describes the Garvey philosophy as a great river. In his words, The Garvey Philosophy, the Garvey Drive, and the Garvey Prophecy” are like a great river that flows through the continents of the world, flooding us with a philosophy, a set of values, and a way of thinking and living that changes the lives of Black people wherever we are.


In Section 2, those who seek a deeper understanding of Garvey’s court case will find supporting evidence contradicting the charges levied against Garvey and documents of the wide-range national and international support to exonerate him. They may be surprised by the evidence of attacks by White Supremacist groups, integrationists, socialists, and communists. Garvey was portrayed in the media and political environment as a man who disturbed race relations.


On his last day in office, on January 21, 2024, President Joe Biden pardoned Garvey in response to the advocacy of elected officials and leaders, as well as millions of petitions arguing for the pardon. However, this pardon represents only one critical segment in the 100 year struggle to posthumously and fully exonerate Garvey. Congresswoman Yvette Clarke is continuing this struggle with a legislative Marcus Garvey Legacy Package that she initiated on August 20, 2025.

The Congressmember states that while President Biden’s pardon represents tremendous progress towards righting a great wrong, “We cannot rest until a great injustice is expunged in its entirety.” The legislation calls for a “full and unambiguous exoneration that finds Garvey innocent of the politically motivated charges against him.”


Justice for Garvey is a reminder that the struggle for justice is intergenerational and is ever present. Julius Garvey, MD, FACS, FRCS, the Editor is a retired physician who lectures on the life and legacy of his father, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

Dr. Brenda M. Greene is Professor Emeritus and Founder and Executive Director Emeritus of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY. For more information, visit https://www.drbrendamgreene.com

Cheryl Todmann

Fern Gillespie
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Cheryl Todmann

By Fern Gillespie
Dance not only centers Cheryl Todmann, dance is at the center of her life. Todmann, the founder and executive producer of Brooklyn’s popular entertainment fundraiser, The Stars of New York Dance, discovered the thrill of being a dancer at age 30—an age when many professional dancers look at retiring. She had spent first part of her career as a successful media marketing executive with positions at Essence Magazine, The New York Times, MTV Networks, AURN and TV Guide.

But at age 30 with two bad knees, she felt the need to move, physically, to be fulfilled. So, she joined the dance ministry at St. Paul Community Baptist Church in East New York, and it changed her life.


“At that time, I was the copywriter for three people on the sales team at TV Guide and their revenue was shooting through the roof. The publisher gave me the Marketing Person of the Year Award,” Todmann told Our Time Press. “She asked me what are you doing that made a big difference. I told her I started dancing.

That dance had amplified something in me where my writing was more creative. I could come up with creative concepts for advertisers. And they were loving it. Then, she literally had the entire marketing department take a tap dance class.”


At St. Paul Community Baptist Church, led by the visionary Rev. Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood, she began her calling of marketing movement, and healing herself and others. She founded the Jewel & Rock Fitness dance program at St. Paul, and in 1999, joined Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn as marketing director in exchange for professional dance lessons.

In 2001, she made her professional dance debut in Creative Outlet’s “Best of Seven” dance concert at BAM, performed with Tony Award-winning choreographer George Faison and danced at Isaac Hayes’ Birthday.

At a Michael Jackson fan event, the superstar was so impressed with Jewel & Rock Fitness performance, he told the crowd, “I like the Jewels!”
Reverend Youngblood became her spiritual mentor.

At the church, she discovered her skills in marketing meshing with volunteering in social impact projects. “I started getting more involved at the church in some of the productions. Reverend Youngblood is a big people person, he loves people. He knew every member by name.

He inspired me and many people who were my age to like get involved and help support. So, I would do programs,” she said. Then, he hired Todmann as Director of Corporate Sponsorships and Major Gifts.


It was a pivotable, seismic shift for Todmann from glamourous corporate life to intrinsic community outreach. “I made considerably less, but I just saw it as an opportunity,” she said. “At Saint Paul, I just sort of took all of the relationships I had created at this different companies that I worked for. I learned how to fundraise. I fell in love with community and serving people.” She created partnerships with companies like Phat Farm, who donated running shoes for a walk-a-thon.


Working at St. Paul was the launch of a new career for Todmann. In the last 20 years, she’s garnered a glowing reputation as a social impact communications executive. “I didn’t want to back to corporate, but I still wanted to help people,” she said. “So I was working at the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Community Services, and the Bowery Mission.”

For the past five years, she’s been Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Kingsborough Community College. Born in Harlem, Todmann holds a Syracuse University undergrad degree and earned a business certificate from Duke University and an education certificate from Harvard University.


Her nonprofit, Stars of New York Dance, celebrates its 15th anniversary with a spectacular Divine Nine Dance-Off on Friday, November 14, at The Theater at City Tech in Downtown Brooklyn. The event features NYC leaders from historically Black fraternities and sororities—the Divine Nine—teaming up with professional dancers to fund a year of free dance education and training for children.

The audience votes for their favorite couple, and the winners receive $10,000 to support 10 children’s dance education and training.


Dance changed everything for me,” she said. “Dance was fueling and keeping me creative and healthy, you know, not only physically but mentally and emotionally,” she said. “I knew that if it could do that for me, it could do that for kids. I wanted to give that to the next generation. Stars of New York Dance is my passion project.”

Blood is Flowing in El Fasher, Sudan

Kazembe Batts
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Blood is Flowing in El Fasher, Sudan

By Kazembe Batts IG: @kazbatts
El Fasher, Darfur in the western part of Sudan has been captured by the Rapid Support Forces who are rebelling against the Sudan Armed Forces and challenging the need for a unified Sudan nation.

The city of El Fasher has been encircled by the RSF and they control all access. While the 500-day long siege has lasted it is estimated that 600,000 residents have fled and 250,000 people remain in the city.

The RSF has built a sand barrier encircling the city causing it to have one way in and out. A seeming death trap for people attempting to escape. Internet or telephone service is non-existent, and atrocities are hard to confirm.

Until last week El Fasher was the only area in the Western part of the country controlled by the national government and SAF. With the fall of the city to the RSF the country is practically split into two separate nations. The RSF has already declared the territory they control to be a sovereign nation.


Widely circulating videos online and eyewitness accounts show a horrifying situation of random attacks on people who identify as African as opposed to Arab throughout territory controlled by the RSF. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said, “There are large scale ethnic attacks and atrocities by the RSF.”

The leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, is the same man who led the Janjaweed forces that were credibly accused of genocide in Darfur twenty years ago. At that time pan-African Rev. Herbert Daughtry of the House of the Lord Church visited the region and brought back evidence of catastrophic violence against Africans while his team delivered needed supplies.


In a Democracy Now interview from Nairobi, Kenya Sudanese activist Marine Almeel shared “What the Sudanese armed forces have been promising, which is military victory which is gonna end the war, is nowhere near happening and if they keep insisting that they must win with a military victory then this is just gonna prolong the war more and more because both parties are indiscriminately attacking civilians and infrastructure, like hospitals.”

Almeel also added “The U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan said that the main concern is relations between the Sudan Armed Forces and Islamic movements, but I think it is important to move the main concern from any power sharing prospects to what is happening to people now on the ground.”

Speaking truth to power Almeel is recognizing that politics is at the core of the stalemate between the two opposing forces and visions for Sudan.


American diplomats being more concerned with whether Sudan has relations with Islamic forces than stopping the undeniable mass murder, call it genocide if you want, of hundreds of thousands of civilians must change. Donald Trump’s recent trip to the United Arab Emirates, the country accused of arming the RSF, has implications for a future peaceful Sudan.

Did the American president discuss Sudan with President of the United Arab Emirates Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan? UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the USA make up the “Quad” which is supposed to be building peace. Can nations arm one-side and then be a fair negotiator of a peace deal? Since the start of the war in 2023, 12 million have been displace and an estimated 300,000 people killed.

Sudan is big. Sudan is diverse. Sudan has resources. Most importantly right now…the people of Sudan, especially in Darfur and especially in El Fasher are being indiscriminately murdered.

What can I, you, the American government and people do to protect African lives that are really in danger. As opposed to “going in with guns blazing to Nigeria to protect the Christians” when, although there are killings in Northern Nigeria, there is real GENOCIDE in El Fasher.

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