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Remembering Chadwick Boseman and the Set of “42”

Bernice Elizabeth Green
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Remembering Chadwick Boseman and the Set of “42”

Summer of 2012, I interviewed Chadwick Boseman on the MacDonough Street “set” where important scenes were shot for the actor’s “42” feature film. Dodger great Jackie Robinson, the legend Boseman portrays in the film, lived at 526 in the 1940’s when he broke records and made history.

Quite frankly, Jackie Robinson is in my genealogical tree and that’s the reason I felt compelled to be on that set doing what I had done for hundreds of other productions.
Boseman appreciated the honesty and enjoyed the history talks with my cousin Graham Weatherspoon who came on location. We bonded briefly not over blood ties and the tribal kinship-thing, nor the OTP assignment.
I talked to him about what he should expect from movie company publicity units moving forward. I also told him to make sure his production companies reach out to his audience, and his press. I had heard about “42” because of OTP readers on MacDonough, most notably Valerie Durrah. I simply walked on the set and identified myself as press. I informed him that actors in lead roles should exercise their power and request publicity plans for their films. Plus the bonding with press from their communities carries over to future films in which they are cast.
He shared a secret about where he was living in Bedford Stuyvesant at that time – very near the MacDonough location. I wanted to make his reveal an exclusive for OTP, but he asked me not to. If I recall, humble Boseman said even his landlord did not know he was an actor.
He liked the idea of my focusing on the location as a co-star much better. So, here’s one of the three “42” production stories OTP ran in 2012.
The focus is his “co-star” in a small collection of interview briefs with people who met Boseman, and some who even knew Robinson. It is preceded by Grio.com’s announcement of the re-release of “42.” (Bernice Green)

Chadwick Boseman’s ’42’ to return to theaters as tribute to actor

Ny Magee, Grio.com
Jackie Robinson was the first Black player in Major League Baseball in 1947, and Boseman played him in the 2013 sports drama. AMC Theaters will screen the film in more than 300 locations starting Thursday. Tickets will cost $5 and go on sale late Tuesday, PEOPLE reports. 
The actor died after a long battle with colon cancer on Aug. 28, which also happened to be the same day the MLB celebrated Jackie Robinson Day. The tribute was initially set to take place on April 15 but was pushed back when the season was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. 
In the days since Boseman’s death, fellow celebrities and fans have flooded social media with tributes. His 42 costar Harrison Ford, described him as “compelling, powerful and truthful as the characters he chose to play,” Ford said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “His intelligence, personal dignity and deep commitment inspired his colleagues and elevated the stories he told. He is as much a hero as any he played. He is loved and will be deeply missed,” he added.
The Jackie Robinson Foundation also paid tribute to Boseman.
“Chadwick was a dear friend of the Foundation – lending his time and visibility to help advance our mission,” the charity posted on Twitter Saturday. “Preparing for his starring role in ’42,’ he studied extensively and spent considerable time with [Jackie’s wife] Rachel Robinson. A consummate professional, he absorbed every story, every memory and every photo and film excerpt he could consume to help translate the soul of an American hero. And now, Chadwick will be etched in history as a hero in his own right, especially having shown millions of black and Brown children the power of a superhero who looks like them.”
Meanwhile, Boseman’s final movie, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, co-starring Viola Davis, will be released posthumously on Netflix.
As we previously reported, the film follows the rising “tensions and temperatures over the course of an afternoon recording session in 1920s Chicago, as a band of musicians await trailblazing performer, the legendary ‘Mother of the Blues,’ Ma Rainey.”
Over the weekend, Twitter announced that Boseman’s final post was the most liked tweet ever in the history of the platform.

Brooklyn Brownstone Block Brings “42” to Life
(Reprint from July 19, 2012)

A brownstone block in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant is playing a pivotal role in the filming of “42”, the major feature currently in production about Brooklyn Dodgers great Jackie Robinson.
Just as it did in 1947 when the baseball legend became the first Black player to join the Major Leagues in the 20th century.
This week, Ebbets Productions filmed exterior scenes in front of 526 MacDonough Street, between Patchen and Ralph, where Robinson (starring Chadwick Boseman) resided, just at the cusp of his heyday years.
During July 9 pre-production week, slight changes returned 526 to its young 1940’s self. Nearby towering streetlights, large planters and other signs of the contemporary were vanished. Costumes and props, from perambulators to milk crates, scooters, Studebakers, Hudsons, Olds, metal fold-out tables, wooden crates, telephones and even replicas of old New York Times newspapers with the exact dates and news took observers and block residents back to another time.
Boseman’s portrayal of the young Robinson embracing his wife Rachel (Nicole Beharie), holding hands, running, walking, swinging an imaginary bat in the air and on the verge of something great drove home the importance of the athlete’s brief stay on MacDonough Street. It was a haven, a break from the whirlwind of forces – good and bad, sweet and bitter – that came at him like a hard ball that groundbreaking year.
Prior to the MacDonough Street shoot, other locales in the U.S., from Alabama to Georgia, doubled for Brooklyn sites, including the memorable Ebbets field where Robinson deftly stole bases. But no other place can steal the Jackie Robinson presence on MacDonough Street. He and Rachel still live there – in the stories and memories of people who played stickball with him and walked to the park with her.
“You want to know about Jackie?” advised a chorus of MacDonough Street resident solo voices, among them Sarah Brinson and Valerie Durrah. “Talk to Ray Robinson – no relation!” “Talk to Henrietta Toliver!”
The legacy of Mr. Robinson, who rests in Cypress Cemetery, very near Central Brooklyn, is alive and safe and sound on the block where he once lived, and people knew him as a man, not an icon. Here are just some of them followed by more from a reprint of a 1997 Our Time Press story.
Raymond “Ray” Robinson
Mr. Robinson (no relation) lived with his parents, in the apartment just below the Robinson’s at 526. But he’s quick to remind that the couple lived in one-room of Mrs. Brown’s apartment on the second floor. “They didn’t have a whole apartment.”
And there were a couple of reasons he really liked the Robinsons being there.
“I earned some change minding Rachel Robinson’s baby in the carriage in the front yard when she had to go to the store. Kids were different, then. Anybody could tighten you up. I did what I was told. And back in those days you made pennies anyway you could.”
“I don’t recall people around here really knew how famous he was. He came on the block during the Big Blizzard of the winter of 46-47, “where all you could see was the heads of people. That’s how I remember when the Robinson’s lived upstairs. They also had family, the Quentins, on Macon Street right around the corner.”
Mr. Robinson says he and his friends played stickball with Jackie Robinson. “He would throw balls to us and bring us gloves and balls and other things. Homeplate was the sewer cover right in front of 526. The first dent in the Cadillac they gave him was put there by a football thrown in the air, but I don’t remember who did it.”

Henrietta Toliver
At the moment, Henrietta Toliver lives next door to 526.
Back in 1947, she and her family lived with her parents Victoria and Allen Lawrence’s at 522 – a property which is still in the family and has been in the family since 1943.
“There were few black people on McDonough Street, so it was natural that Rachel and I would get together.
“We strolled our Victory carriages made of framed wood over to Saratoga Park. It wasn’t an everyday thing. Just something to do together with our children.
“When she moved away, I don’t recall seeing her until a couple of years ago when she came back to the block looking for the building where she and Jackie lived. She didn’t remember where the house was, but we showed it to her.”
“I used to smoke Chesterfield’s. Just started smoking Kools in 1953.” Rachel never smoked.

Jabali Sawicki
Jabali Sawicki, the founding principal of Excellence Boys Charter School of Bedford Stuyvesant, lives with his wife and child on the block.
He also told us that one day a little girl was caught playing stickball back in 1947 and Jackie Robinson came out and played with her. “After that the story goes, kids were allowed to play stickball.”
He also shared the story of a very important connection of the Robinson family to his life. Jackie and Rachel Robinson’s daughter, Sharon Robinson, the author and professional midwife, delivered Mr. Sawicki as a baby.

Trevor
And by coincidence, the 526 building, it turns out, is owned by a Brooklyn entrepreneur. The film company approached him about shooting exterior scenes there. He agreed. The first time he thought about asking who was cast in the lead role. The next time he talked to the company, he learned that it was Chadwick Boseman – Trevor’s business associate.

by Bernice Elizabeth Green,
Our Time Press, 2012

OUR TIME PRESS Q&A with …MICHAEL A. HARDY, ESQ.

Editor, Our Time Press
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OUR TIME PRESS Q&A with …MICHAEL A. HARDY, ESQ.

Executive Vice President & General Counsel, and Co-Founder of The National Action Network

Our Time Press has followed the work of the National Action Network, founded by The Rev. Al Sharpton, for more than 20 years, and we have observed the contributions of NAN’s co-founder and legal counsellor Attorney Michael A. Hardy, Esq. for just as long. What specifically impresses us is NAN’s consistent community advocacy, strategic creativity and compassion for the people on the ground. The organization has raised emergency preparedness to an art form. We were impressed with its decision in response to COVID19: to convert satellite offices into community kitchens to deliver meals to those who needed them. We are energized by its commitment to get voters to the polls, and its tireless work around Voter Registration and encouraging the community to join in poll watching work and the 2020 national elections. Then, of course, there is the tireless work for our families, the Bells, the Carrs, the Hawkins, the Floyds, The Martin-Fultons and so many others. We requested a talk with Mr. Hardy, the day after Rev. Sharpton’s successful “Commitment March,” August 28, 2020, in Washington, DC. Mr. Hardy spoke to us the following morning.

Part One of Two

OUR TIME PRESS: Things are happening across the country and the National Action Network (NAN) seems to have been involved in several, if not most of them, as the go-to organization for support, guidance and stand-taking. Your thoughts on the missions, the reach and the people’s trust nationally in the National Action Network?
ATTORNEY MICHAEL A. HARDY: We are coming up on 30 years of National Action Network as an organization and I am proud to be part of it and to support what The Rev. Sharpton does and the services and opportunities he and the National Action Network provide to families and communities.
The work of The Rev. Al Sharpton and even myself preceded the National Action Network.
Many people have seen the recent HBO documentary “Yusuf Hawkins: Storm over Brooklyn” about the Bensonhurst tragedy in 1989. National Action Network was born out of that whole Bensonhurst incident and the attempted assassination of Rev. Sharpton after one of the marches.
People know NAN because we have built an organization, under the leadership of Rev. Sharpton. They know the work we have done. They know how to reach us. They know where to go when these situations happen. and they often do.
Rev. Sharpton has a nickname, Rev. 9-1-1.
It’s come to the point when it is understood when we can’t come. But when National Action Network goes to a community to help with a situation, it comes as an organization. When a police officer has a situation, the police union will come to provide the back up and help the family or to see situations arising and have the officer be prepared.
National Action Network provides that same work for many of the families that ask for support. We support them in all ways to give the organizational backing that they need in order to challenge the institution in various situations that they may be confronting.
If you think about what Rev. and NAN have done, looking at say, the Sean Bell family, the Gwen Carr family, Sabrina Fulton, we not only help these families, but we inspire them in a way that gives their lives new meaning and purpose. Someone like Gwen Carr was not only the mother of a victim, Eric Garner, but she herself has found new purpose in life to do things.
In some ways, Rev. Sharpton delivers miracles in the support and the justice he stands for. That’s me talking. Not him. It’s my observation over the years.

OTP: Last Friday’s “Commitment March.” What is community media being asked to commit to?
MH: Media must tell truthful stories. A diligent story. Ask the right questions. There are times when you may enter an interview, particularly major corporate mainstream media entities. You listen to the whole interview and you say there are more commonsense questions that could have been asked to give the reader an understanding on what’s happening here with a perpetrator or a victim. So they may tell a story that they want to tell as opposed to what is actually happening. Media entities that really seek to tell the unbiased story do the greatest service to the community they serve.

OTP. That reminds us of Rev. Sharpton’s statement on Friday: doors must be opened. We need a new conversation. What kind of conversation is that?
MH: When people want to commit, to helping and changing a situation, they must be willing to engage in it, and do something they may not be completely comfortable doing but is the right thing to do.
That’s how you really progress: have a partnership. It’s not the case that partners agree on all things. But, ultimately, they realize what the right thing to do is.
Look at what happened in the core part of the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 to 1968. The Congress that confirmed Thurgood Marshall as a Supreme Court Justice, and that passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Housing Act and on down the line, did not all want to do those things. But they knew that history put them in a situation where it was impossible for them to say, “No.”

OTP: In that history, not so far ago, in 1989, is the group killing of Yusuf Hawkins in Brooklyn and, in recent history, last February, the deadly shooting of Ahmaud Arbery by racists in Brunswick, Georgia That’s a 30-year span. What do you see has changed and what remains the same?
MH: The Arbery situation was a deviation.
After the Michael Griffith’s case at Howard Beach and Yusuf Hawkins in Bensonhurst and other cases that occurred in the South, you no longer saw that type of non-police racial violence against individuals. You may have seen discrimination happen, but that type of violence is a throwback to earlier days. The difference is: because of the movement that was built around those cases, the authorities had to act on them quickly. If there was a tape like in today’s environment, that would have made them different cases, and would have led to a full prosecution of the perpetrators.
Then again, the dynamics is a result of the work that has evolved from many organizations, and the underlying need to be responsive.

OTP: As you react to the various incidents happening now, do you wish there had been a camera present earlier in your career for a record of what was happening back then?
MH, Esq: Obviously, had there been a camera present for Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell and some of those earlier incidents, it might have made a tremendous difference.
However, even without the camera, you still fight the cases. There’s always enough evidence available to know that something happened that should not have happened. Would a camera have made a difference for any of the officers in those cases being convicted or not, no one knows. Certainly, a camera would have made it a different type of case.

Part II of Our Time Press Q&A with Attorney Michael Hardy continues, Thursday, September 10.

The View from Here: America’s Legacy of Racism

David Mark Greaves
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The View from Here: America’s Legacy of Racism

By David Mark Greaves

In this coming Saturday’s New York City lien sales of 4,700 properties, we see how America’s legacy of racism is baked into the system, showing itself at key moments in our lives, enveloping our lives and limiting our horizons from the moment of birth.
In a release calling for Mayor De Blasio to postpone the sales, New York Attorney General Letitia James says, “…according to the Coalition for Affordable Homes, the city is six times more likely to sell a lien on a property in a majority Black neighborhood and two times more likely to sell a lien on a property in a majority Hispanic neighborhood than in a majority white neighborhood.” It is part of racism’s death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach to race war. It is one of the pressures Black and Brown people are subjected to. Constantly.

Prime Targets
In addition to the systemic and even public attacks, we are the prime targets in the authoritarian takeover of the United States government. This is not crazy talk. According to Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Muller’s report on the 2016 election, it is our diverse readership of African Americans, who are progressives, conservatives and none of the above, that was singled out for special attention by the Russians and continue to be in the upcoming Presidential election.

Alternate Realities
Right now, there are millions of Russian bots moving through the internet, delivering messaging in support of a President who knows no boundaries, including fomenting something close to civil war. Working on his behalf, they hyper-target us sorted by demographics, zip codes, likes, dislikes, page views and web searches. Readers of Field and Stream and readers of House Beautiful, may live in the same household, but the messaging they receive will be shaped to their interests. They receive ads that self-delete and email giving messaging only for them. The messaging is reinforced on all their social media channels, as well as on Fox television and by the President. It is a total immersion in an alternate reality, where unstable personalities in this world of delusions will then act out solutions with real-world consequences.
This is what happened when the Trump-following 17-year-old with an AR 15-style weapon, killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week.

Inflamer in Chief
More violence, more fear: this is what Trump wants so that he can cry out, “This is what’s coming with Biden,” rather than the truth of, “This is just a taste of what you’ll get with four more years of me.”
The rhetoric that he, his family and his supporters use, actually describes what’s happening while Trump is president as Joe Biden’s America. They have no positive message, but what they do have is a gangsta president who will stop at nothing to retain power. He has installed an Attorney General who acts as his consiglieri, his Direct of National Intelligence just said he would no longer give in-person briefings to the Congress on election interference, the president dismisses anyone who speaks of Russian interference in the election, he has attacked mail-in voting and his Postmaster General has removed street mailboxes, taken highspeed mail sorters offline and cutback overtime preventing carriers from completing routes.
And finally, he said the only way he loses is if the election is rigged. And that’s the real reason Donald Trump won’t condemn the militia groups with their AR 15s and who are called terrorists by the FBI. He may need them November 4th to cause havoc and give him reason for stern measures that the Russians will be more than happy to help rile up.

Herd Immunity
Negative health disparities are more evidence of the legacy of racism that have been exposed by the coronavirus pandemic, with African American dying at three times the rate of whites. Now, one of the concepts being whispered in Trump’s ear about controlling Covid 19 is “herd immunity.” That is achieved when enough people, say 75-80% of the population, are infected, then the virus has no place to go. Of course, this would mean millions of people, disproportionally Black, Brown, old, poor, and in Trump’s mind, Democratic, would die. However, that would still leave too much collateral damage. And we can be sure that if it were the Republican upper classes who suffered most disproportionately from the virus, the idea of herd immunity would not even be uttered in polite company. More likely we’d hear, “Test everybody and test them again. Spare no expense, do whatever you have to do. This is serious.”

The Republican Agenda
Senate Republicans are complicit in all of this, with their outright voter suppression tactics and by blocking funds for election protection and funds for the postal service to handle the increased election load of mail-in ballots. By sticking with Trump, they have the Trump mob on their side, keeping them and their ilk in control for as long as possible, starting with the over 200 lifetime appointments already made to the federal judiciary. We cannot depend on Republicans to save our republic. They have a different agenda and ours has to be resistance by voting big time.

Bridgette Floyd: Will Future Generations Remember You for Your Complacency
In this past Sunday’s march in Washington, we heard the calls for justice that were made in the 1963 march, except that now, we also were able to listen to the voices from the families of victims of direct racial violence.
Bridgette Floyd, sister of George Floyd, asked, “How will the history books remember you? What will be your legacy? Will your future generations remember you for your complacency? Your inaction? Or will they remember you for your empathy, your leadership, your passion for weeding out the evil and injustice in our world.
“Martin Luther King stood here 57 years ago, and he told the world his dream. But I don’t think y’all know, we’re here right now and have the power to make it happen. But we have to do it together. We have to do it together for our generations to come. For our children.
“My brother cannot be a voice today; we have to be that voice. We have to be the change and we have to be his legacy.”

New Phase for King’s Dream

Editor, Our Time Press
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New Phase for King’s Dream

Intergenerational Leaders Focus Conversations on Injustice in America, Voter Suppression, Voting Power … and Next Steps

“The Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,” organized by The Rev. Al Sharpton (in photo, inset, left), Founder & President, the National Action Network, (NAN), and attended by thousands on Friday, August 28, 2020, commemorated the 57th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Among the guest speakers were Rev. King’s granddaughter Yolanda Renee King, 12 (above).

Miss King’s Vision: “We Will be the Generation That Dismantles Racism.”

“We are going to be the generation that dismantles systemic racism once and for all, now and forever,” she said. “We are going to be the generation that calls a halt to police brutality and gun violence once and for all, now and forever. We are going to be the generation that reverses climate change and saves our planet once and for all, now and forever. And we are going to be the generation that ends poverty here in America, the wealthiest nation on Earth, once and for all, now and forever.”

She said that her grandfather “predicted this very moment” – when the struggle would move into a new phase. “The first phase was the Civil Rights (Movement), and the new phase is genuine equality,” she said.

“My generation has already taken to the streets peacefully, and with masks and socially distanced, to protest racism, and I want to ask the young people here to join me in pledging that we have only just begun to fight,” she said. “And that we will be the generation that moves from ‘me’ to ‘we’.”

“I didn’t know what would hit us in 2020 – a pandemic that shut our schools and put our young lives on hold, more killings of unarmed Black people by police, attacks on our right to vote, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression that we learned about in school, and more extreme weather than ever before,” she said. But, she noted, “great challenges produce great leaders.”

And Miss King is ready to lead.

MEC FALL SEMESTER UNDERMINED: Part II

Maitefa Angaza
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MEC FALL SEMESTER UNDERMINED: Part II

Faculty & Students Fight for NYC’s HBCU

By Maitefa Angaza

Correction:
From Part One of this article (MA)
Comments attributed to Terrence Blackman were not made by him and he was not a MEC founder. Also, Dr. Rudy Crew’s letter of resignation to the Medgar Evers College Community stated that he’d begin his new job in Georgia in July, 2020. So had the offer not been rescinded, he wouldn’t have been at MEC through June 2021 as reported.
In last week’s article, “The Ire this Time,” we reported on the disturbing state of affairs at Medgar Evers College, considered New York’s honorary HBCU. This week we provide more information, context and comments, including an alarming update as Fall classes are about to begin online.
Sakia Fletcher, outgoing student government president, graduated in June with a degree in Public Administration and Public Policies. Her last semester in office was a proving ground for the type of public servant she will be. She says that during the height of the pandemic, Rudy Crew was not around and students had to act fast to pick up his slack.
“We secured $50,000 from Student Technology and wrote a grant called the Medgar Evers College Relief Fund,” Fletcher said. By her accounting 200 students received $150 and 100 received $500, $1,000 or $1,500, the latter amount for students directly impacted by COVID-19 as a result of either they or a family member having contracted it.
And while CUNY provided laptops for students without them, Medgar Evers College needed to purchase bundles from internet service providers to give Wifi codes to students, as other CUNY schools did. Fletcher said that she and other students were expected to handle this themselves.
“The only info the college did give was the contact information for the different providers, and in many cases the providers’ free services did not reach the areas where students live.
“I live in the Bronx,” she said. “Most students commute; not everyone can afford to live in Brooklyn now, so many have moved out, but still go to Medgar.”
Fletcher says that for many MEC students to this day, it’s “a huge issue” that they do not have Internet service at home. She was one of them.
In addition, intimidation by the administration is said to be typical at Medgar Evers College, affecting not just students, but faculty, and even faculty representation. Dr. Zulema Blair, the current Vice-Chair of the College Council and Chair of the Department of Public Administration, is noted as one who has dared to speak out. Meanwhile, in a climate that some feel prioritizes retribution, advances that the College could make to solidify its legacy and attract and retain students, go unexplored. Fletcher cites one of her frustrations as an example.
“For a predominantly Black institution in Central Brooklyn named after a civil rights martyr to not have an African American Studies degree is shameful,” said Fletcher. “And for the only predominantly Black CUNY institution to still have classes in portable dormitories — it’s horrifying and humiliating!”
Barry Lituchy has worked at Medgar Evers College since 2007 as an adjunct assistant professor of History in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Asked about the general climate and student morale at MEC before the pandemic hit, he believes there was disappointment and fear for the mission.
“It seemed as though the college was being starved, and even undermined, from within. Medgar Evers College has this mission to be the HBCU for the New York City metro area, but the people at the top inside the institution don’t have any respect for that.“
An issue of concern addressed by Prof. Lituchi is what he calls, “a complete lack of respect for the faculty, particularly the adjunct faculty.”
CUNY’s 2017 contract requires three-year assignments for adjuncts who have taught the equivalent of two courses each for 10 consecutive semesters within a department. Prior to this, adjuncts had no job security from one semester to the next. While most colleges have complied, said Lituchy, MEC has tried to avoid it.
Three years ago he filed a grievance — on behalf of all the adjuncts, he says. He won. But now in 2020, adjuncts were again notified that they would not be retained. Lituchy filed his second grievance the same day. He feels the administration should actually be seeking to retain high-performing adjuncts, as they work at “much lower rates” than full-time or tenured professors, certainly lower than the high-salaried President Crew and Provost Okekere.
Dr. Armondo Howard, Chair of the Department of Physics and Computer Sciences at MEC, describes the current scenario as, “depressing.”
“We are being told that we cannot have some of our best adjuncts teach,” he said. “This is a tragedy for the university! I believe these adjuncts are the kind of people who will bring up enrollment and help keep the college going forward, which is exactly what we need.”
Dr. Shermane Austin, Deputy Chair of this department, is a tenured professor.
“A number of adjuncts, part-time faculty, are involved in a grievance process led by the PSC CUNY union over three-year appointments initially approved and then rescinded,” said Austin. “However, when affected adjuncts in the Physics and Computer Science Department were assigned courses for the upcoming fall semester, we were notified by the Dean of the School of Science, Health and Technology that they could not be hired until the grievance was resolved. These are two separate issues.
“Not only have adjunct faculty been unfairly penalized, but this is also an academic issue. In the age of Covid-19 and the disruptive impact of remote learning on our primarily minority student population, our best and seasoned adjuncts have been removed from teaching.”
A concerned faculty member who prefers to remain anonymous shared some of the causes of the alarm and frustration felt by many colleagues:
“Provost Okereke is running the college and we are now doing distance learning. Faculty are very concerned that there are exceedingly large classes, some from 42 to 50 students, and our college has a policy that no online instruction should have more than 30 students. Black and brown students are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. It’s really important to ensure that they have the optimum environment to get the attention they need.
“You also have asynchronous classes, which means students do not have designated times to go to classes. This was a policy imposed by the administration without consultation from faculty. And as a result, there is no specified time when students can meet with faculty members online. This is going to further impact the retention and performance of students.
“I am struggling with, how do I design my classes, where I can’t mandate that students meet with me? This goes against the mission of the College, which is to engage students to provide a nurturing and safe environment. This also violates the academic freedom of faculty members. When registration first started the classes had times and days. The provost had the registrar remove them. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. I really don’t.”
It would appear that the way forward for Medgar Evers College lies in the direction of CUNY demonstrating respect for and accountability to the students, faculty and staff. Real action informed by those most impacted by decision-making must be taken and the College’s full agency must be restored in honor of the heroism and sacrifice of its namesake.
Evelyn Maggio, a tenured professor of Business Law who’s been at the college for 23 years, says she’s not seen anything like the preferential treatment given the often-absent Rudy Crew.
“The Chancellor is letting Crew stay, supposedly for a year, because he’s a friend,” said Prof. Maggio. “The widow and the family of Medgar Evers wrote to the Chancellor, basically asking him to remove Crew. And now he is starting a search for a new president, but you know these searches — they can go on for six months, they can go on for six years!”

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