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Brownsville Youth Dive Into OffshoreWind Construction Training Program

Mary Alice Miller
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Brownsville Youth Dive Into OffshoreWind Construction Training Program

By Mary Alice Miller
On a cool afternoon in early June a group of Juniors and Seniors from Transit Tech High School huddle around schematics. Their instructor, Mr. Muhammad, explained to them the difference between architectural and engineering scales and demonstrated how to use scale rulers.


The youth are participating in the Brooklyn Youth Offshore Wind Training Program, a paid training program that offers Brownsville youth certification and hands-on experience in project management, construction, and wind turbine technician training, preparing them for green energy jobs.


The first of its kind program is administered in a collaboration between the Central Brooklyn Economic Development Corp., National Wind Service Corp., and funded by Citizens Bank and Local Initiatives Support Corp., New York.


The youth participants talked about what brought them to the program.
Honestly, I have a lot of career choices. I wanted to get a job and put some spare change in my pockets. I want to get different experiences.

I don’t want to go to college. I am not too fancy in school, so I might as well do a trade. .All I want to do is graduate from high school and do a trade. As long as I get paid decent money, I am happy.

They had a lot to choose from. They had construction, welding, HVAC… I don’t know what I like right now,” said Christopher, age 17. “Everything doesn’t happen overnight. But if I put in the work and stick around think I will get there over time. I don’t know none of this stuff, and now I am learning about it. I had no idea about it. Very like, true knowledge.”


Kinsey, age 16, said I” am fond of being an electric engineer. I joined this program to broaden my knowledge. I like the electric part of it and getting my hands dirty. I think this program will help me. I think I made the right choice.

I like this program because no only are they teaching me about electrical engineering, but also construction, welding, HVAC. So, if electrical engineering doesn’t work out maybe I can become a welder or a general contractor.”


“I have always been interested in trades, and the trade I particularly want to be in is welding. Welding and carpentry. Ever since I was young, I always found metalwork and woodwork incredibly exciting. I used to play with Legos a lot and down in my grandfather’s basement, he has a lot of pieces of wood and I would glue them together.

My grandfather would show me how to make things with wood,” said Cameron, age 16. “I really enjoy this program. It will help me get closer to my goal. I am getting closer to people I wouldn’t normally get close to. I am building my network.”


Eighteen-year-old Juan said “I signed up for this program to learn more about electrical and plumbing. There are programs at Transit Tech that let us learn about electrical so I wanted to further my education. This programs has met my expectations because even though most of it is learning through reading books a lot of it is also hands on learning.”


“Originally, when they first offered it, I didn’t know what I wanted to choose when they gave out other programs. But when I heard that we can get a lot of certifications like NCCER (National Center for Construction Education and Research) it interested me a lot. That is something good to have in my back pocket,” said James, age 17. “Construction isn’t my first choice for what I want to do.

I want to be a pilot. Construction is something I could lean on if things never work out, like a Plan B. This program is interesting. I am enjoying my time here.”


Michael, age 17, said, “I wanted to participate in something that is hands-on, something more fun I can do. It’s a lot of fun learning about construction. I want to be an electrician. This class is the core instruction for the trades in general. Learning about the other stuff in this class will really help me out in my career and future.”


“I originally wanted to do computer engineering in college. But I wasn’t fully sure what I wanted to do, so I wanted to try different options. This offers construction, more of the hands-on side instead of the IT side. So, I thought this would be a good learning experience to figure out what would be best for me, or a second option. [Computer engineering and the physical space for computer equipment] relate to each other,” said Jason, age 17. “This class met my expectations. I was looking for a hands-on activity and the books at the same time. The environment here is really nice. And we get paid.”


David Muhammad, Executive Director, Genesus Construction Training Center, led the construction training.
“I think that we all need access to these programs for our young people in our community. Construction training programs are not easily accessible in the Northeast unless they are blue states. Construction training and apprenticeship programs are usually offered by the trade unions.

And the trade unions don’t have an open-door policy when it comes to Black folk, particularly in inner cities. It’s the good old boys club,” said Muhammad. “And so we wanted to provide opportunities like this to our community. So we started our own apprenticeship training program. We are happy to provide it.”


Genesus Construction Training Center was established 2010. They have trained hundreds of people through the apprentice training program. Though their non-apprentice program they have trained 6,000.


“Genesus One Enterprise Construction Company has done building construction since 1999. We were at capacity in 2010 when we got a lot of work and a lot of employees. We had a lot of opportunity for employees but we didn’t have that many skilled tradespeople in our community.

So, we need more skilled tradesmen. Our target is to employ and train our people,” said Muhammad. “We couldn’t find more skilled trade people, so we said we would train them. So we started Genesus Construction Training Center.”

Jumaane Williams

Nayaba Arinde
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Jumaane Williams

Publicly Advocating for Grassroots Issues, Wants the Democratic Party to Do Better

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large
With decades in the public eye, not adverse to political controversy, Grenadian-American Jumaane Williams is back in familiar territory – campaigning for political office.
As he runs for re-election to be the Public Advocate of New York City, the Democrat with a Working Families Party endorsement wants the Democrats to re-engage the demographic who felt taken for granted, and abandoned and so came out and voted “with their anger, and their fear,” hence Republican Donald Trump became the president.


Democrats are forgoing reliability and replacing it with uncertainty, Williams suggested. Certain kitchen table issues should be top of mind for the party, but are not, he said.
Regarding housing–“I don’t think we could be in a worse situation,” Public Advocate Williams told Our Time Press. “We have the highest rental market in the country. It’s really bad. If folks had listened to us many years ago, we may have been in a different situation.”


As Chairman of the City Council’s Housing and Buildings Committee, he advocated for “deeply affordable housing to help prevent communities from being priced out of the five boroughs.”
He told Our Time Press this week, “The country has been talking about affordable housing for a very long time. People ignored it. That’s part of the reason I believe we have this wanna-be dictator in the White House, because he was responding to what people were saying.”


Those who ignored the ongoing plight include leaders of his own party, Williams charged, when they are “more concerned about incumbency protection and leadership protection, we get in trouble.


“There was a point when Donald Trump was debating Hillary Clinton, and he said, ‘I know that the system is rigged because I use it,’ and he said, ‘I know Democrats won’t do anything about it, because your wealthy donors won’t allow you to.’

That is one of the truest statements ever said, and we did not prove him wrong, and people came out and voted with their anger and their fear. If we can just get our leaders in the party that I belong to, to just stop trying to stifle folk who are really responding to the people’s needs, we’d be in a much better place.”


Across the aisle, Williams continued, “Republicans allow their populist message to go through. Democrats do everything they can to stifle their populist message. And now Andrew Cuomo, who helped get us Trump, is on the pathway to getting to the mayoralty, because the powers in the party want that.

They don’t want someone who is talking about freezing the rent and free buses. They are more afraid of [that] than Andrew Cuomo, who has harmed the office. That was replicated across the country, and I was hoping that we had learned the lesson, but we are making the same mistake in real time.”


Is there a concern that this may result in folks choosing not to go to the polls
“We saw that happen across the country,” replied Williams. “A lot of folk stayed home. I think that is the wrong thing to do because you are going to jump out of the frying pan into the fire. The Donald Trump presidency is legitimately central to the crisis, as we are seeing now.

You understand why people are fed up and say they are not coming out. But there are differences that make it enough to come out and choose somebody who is not going to be as bad as the other person.

But Democrats have relied on that message for too long, and people are tired of it. They are feeling afraid–public safety is something you have to lean into, and they are feeling that they cannot afford to live, and I don’t know how the Democrats allow the wealthiest people in the world to command that message. It makes no sense and is disappointing.”


The Public Advocate added, “Andrew Cuomo has a real shot of becoming mayor because Eric Adams was so bad that he is bringing back Andrew Cuomo.”
Last year, there was talk of Public Advocate Williams taking over as mayor for then-federally indicted, embattled Eric Adams. But Trump got Adams’ charges dropped, and he is running for mayor again—as an independent.


Williams told the paper, “I couldn’t be more disappointed in the disgraceful leadership of Eric Adams, and I think a lot of people feel that way, that’s why he doesn’t have a tremendous amount of support even among Black leaders. All of them have left.

Except maybe one or two. That’s a hell of a sign of bad leadership, that you might have someone like Andrew Cuomo coming back. I hope that people should understand not to replace someone who left in a disgraceful way, with someone who themselves left in a disgraceful way.

Andrew Cuomo is a chameleon. Whatever you believe in congestion pricing, in bail reform, in minimum wage, in mental health–whatever you believe, he has believed in on some point, depending on what was beneficial to him. That is why we are in this position, because that is not leadership. We need someone who is going to take a stand for what is best for New Yorkers first.”


Ultimately, Williiams determined, “I am very concerned, and everybody should be very concerned about what a Mayor Cuomo would look like, and we should do everything we can not to rank him, and leave him off everyone’s ballot.”


With his own ranking list, Williams told Our Time Press, “Brad Lander, Speaker Adams tied for number one. For number two, we think you should choose one of those. For number three–Zohran Mamdani, then Zellnor Myrie, and Scott Stringer.”


Empowered as he spoke on it, Williams did not allow his teenage diagnosis with Tourette Syndrome to deter his trajectory as he worked his way up through the NYC public school system, including Brooklyn Tech High School. He eventually represented Brooklyn’s 45th District in the New York City Council from 2009 to 2019.

After taking over from Tish James in the 2019 special election, he has served as New York City’s Public Advocate since 2019.
Unsuccessfully, impressive numbers notwithstanding, Williams ran for Lieutenant Governor in 2018 and Governor in 2022. Both times, Kathy Hochul got the deciding votes.


In January 2025 , civil rights attorney Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar pulled out of the race for comptroller and switched to the one for public advocate.
Williams now has a primary on his hands.


“It’s going fairly well, but we have got to keep pushing. What we need now is to raise more money. One of our opponents has a little more money than us because she was running for comptroller in a very competitive race, and she decided to change in [January], and she brought that money over with her.”


He added that his opponent, Rajkumar, is “a very big ally of Eric Adams.”
As the incumbent, he added, “We feel good about the race that we are running, but you always want to feel great, so we are not taking anything for granted.”

Kyla Jenée Lacey, “White Privilege” Poet and Storyteller, to Perform at Brooklyn’s Herbert Von King Park for Juneteenth Festival

Fern Gillespie
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Fern Gillespie
When poet Kyla Jenee Lacey’s powerful spoken word performance of her poem “White Privilege” was shown in class by a Tennessee social studies school teacher in 2021, the poem became a lightning rod for White conservatives in fear of “Critical Race Theory” in the schools.
“About 3 to 4 years ago they were firing teachers left and right for having the gall to teach history from a correct lens,” Lacey told Our Time Press.

“Matthew Hahn was one of the teachers who was fired for using my work. He had given his class the Ta-Nehisi Coates essay. Then he was given a warning and then he showed them my “White Privilege” video. He finally won his case. But after he won, the School District of Sullivan County, Tennessee decided to appeal.”

Kyla Jenee Lacey


When the “White Privilege” video went viral, it was the period of the pandemic and the George Floyd racial awakening. Her work continues to be part of the national CRT conversation. She’s been featured on “Last Week with John Oliver ” Tamron Hall and Laura Ingraham from Fox, ” who referred to her as “anti-– racist, propaganda.”

Her work has been discussed in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, New York Times and the Atlantic. As a journalist, she’s written for TheRoot.com, BET.com, Huffington Post, and currently has a column with Karen Hunter’s The Hub News online.


Lacey has garnered a reputation as a poet, writer, activist, spoken word artist, and storyteller with an acerbic sense of humor. “White Privilege” is personal for her. She had grown up in Florida since her family moved from Chicago at age nine.

Lacey was a smart young Black girl in honors programs attending predominantly White schools where her teachers sometimes overlooked her intelligence. At 10 years old, Lacey wrote her first poem, and her mother had it copyrighted.

“I grew up 20 minutes away from where Trayvon Martin was murdered. Just to kind of put that in perspective, George Zimmerman’s adjunct professor is literally one of my best friends,” she explained. “You know, even as an adult, I carry people insulting my intelligence as like one of my biggest things. A lot of my teachers didn’t like the fact that they brightest student was their darkest student.”


Lacey’s one-woman show of poetry, storytelling, and comedy has toured to over 300 colleges and universities in over 40 states. Her poems have been viewed collectively online about 10 million times. A Central Florida University graduate with a history degree, she speaks several languages, including French, German, and Spanish.

Lacey lives in Atlanta and is a pet person with four cats and a dog named Precola Breedlove in honor of Toni Morrison’s lead character in “The Bluest Eye.”

As a writer, she continues to be inspired by Toni Morrison. When the Atlantic wrote an article about CRT, Lacey’s name was mentioned in the same paragraph as Morrison’s. It was a phenomenal experience for her. “I cried. My mom taught me how to read, and I feel like Toni taught me how to write,” she said.

“I love the way that she could take words that had absolutely no reason for being in the same sentence and put them right next to each other. It was like the most beautiful combination. I liked how she was able to examine multiple things at a time in her books. I think that she really taught me the beauty of words.”

“White Privilege” continues to be taught in schools and colleges. “I’m hoping that I wrote a work that was able to withstand the test of time,” said Lacey.

Oh am I making you uncomfortable? try a cramped slave ship but wait, slavery is over now, it’s just called the prison system cuz like you’re not racist cuz you don’t use the ‘n’ word, but y’all use n*ggas everyday.
From White Privilege by Kyla Jenee Lacey

Kyla Jenee Lacey is scheduled to have her first one-woman spoken word performance in Brooklyn on Saturday, June 14, at the Juneteenth Festival at Herbert Von King Park on 670 Lafayette Ave. The year’s event is hosted by Baba Obediah Wright and features Iyaba Ibo Mandingo, Javier Gooden and FUSHA Dance Company.

There will be gospel, jazz, R&B, rap, poetry, swing dance, stepping, ballet, stilt walkers, face painting, pony rides, artists, and crafts. The Juneteenth Festival is presented by The Cooperative Culture Collective. Our Time Press is a media partner.

Culturally Responsive Education for Black Youth

Brenda Greene
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Culturally Responsive Education for Black Youth

Remembering Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu

Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, national educational consultant, publisher, and the author of over 30 books that address empowering Black youth through a culturally responsive curriculum, made his transition on April 25, 2025. His books include Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys Vol 111 (1990) which is a sequel to his seminal book Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys (1982) and Black Students, Middle Class Teachers (2002), Although Kunjufu wrote these books in 1990 and 2002 respectively and continued to give workshops for teachers, students, parents, churches, and community residents, his books and lectures are extremely relevant today as we witness inequities in public education, attacks on curriculum, and racial injustice policies that negatively affect Black youth.


Kunjufu issued a “Call to Action” which is based on the premise that we can improve the education of Black youth and close the significant achievement gap between White and Black and Hispanic students if we focus on developing a holistic curriculum that addresses what we know about the factors that affect the success of Black youth.

These include racism, teacher expectations, quality teaching, curriculum, peer pressure, self-esteem, diverse learning styles, income, the media, and parental involvement. It is also important to replicate and enhance models of student success presented by organizations such as the Council of Independent Black Institutions (Home – CIBI), the National Alliance of Black School Educators, Education is a Civil Right | National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE), and the Black Education Research Center at Teachers College, About | Black Education Research Center | Teachers College, Columbia University.

Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu


In Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys Vol 111, Kunjufu dissects the developmental process of Black males by age: Infancy-Nine Years, Nine-Thirteen Years, Thirteen-Eighteen Years and Eighteen-Twenty-five years. He cites studies and books in psychology and education that support his recommendations and barometers for evaluating student success.


The premise of Kunjufu’s Black Students, Middle Class Teachers is that “The most significant characteristic of Master Teachers is not their race or gender but the expectations they have of their students.” Master teachers embrace the following concepts.


It is a teacher’s job to inspire students, especially if they lack the motivation to learn.
Telling is not teaching. If a student has not learned, the teacher has not taught.
Effective teachers use a relevant curriculum that involves critical thinking and pedagogy that will produce tomorrow’s leaders.


You can’t teach what you don’t care about to people you don’t care about.
Kunjufu is committed to empowering White teachers and raising awareness of the role that African American middle class teachers play in the classroom.

He argues that the future of African American children lies in those who teach them and that the majority of teachers in public schools in this country are White. Hence, although he acknowledges the need for more African American teachers in the classroom, this is not the reality.

Thus, it is important to examine the expectations of both White teachers and middle class African American teachers. If teachers have low expectations and limited goals for their students and present them with Eurocentric curricula and lessons that do not respect diverse learning styles, they are setting them up for failure.

He asserts that it is incumbent upon all teachers to understand that middle class values may not be in concert with the values of low-income students. Middle class culture and values are more self-centered and guided by “I have mine and you have to get yours.”

On the other hand, an African frame of reference encourages collaboration and community in the classroom. Students are encouraged to assist each other in learning. The teacher adapts the persona of a coach and is not simply an instructor, custodian, or referral agent.

Teachers as coaches are more concerned with bonding and intellectually challenging students. They understand that significant learning cannot occur until the teacher has established a relationship with his/her/their students.


David Banks, former Chancellor of the NYC Public Schools said this of Dr. Kunjufu.
“Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu was a trailblazing genius. I salute him for his lifelong dedication to lifting up the lives of Black children. His research about countering the conspiracy to destroy Black boys is the seminal work in the field. While we still have so far to go, the world was made a better place because Dr. Kunjufu passed this way.”


Banks was also the founding principal of The Eagle Academy for Young Men. The philosophy of The Eagle Academy draws from the work of Dr. Kunjufu.


There is a crisis in education that is disproportionally affecting Black youth. In view of the reality of inequities in reading and math scores, the push to dismantle the Department of Education, and the growing and politically motivated move to eliminate courses and lessons on Black history, literature, and culture, it is important to examine the legacy left by educators such as the late Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu.

He provided a blueprint for how we move forward. Teachers and parents should revisit his successful strategies outlined in his books on improving the achievement of Black youth. https://africanamericanimages.com

Dr. Brenda M. Greene is Professor of English and Founder and Executive Director Emeritus of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY.

651 ARTS and with The Soapbox Presents Returns for 5th Juneteenth, June 21

Editor, Our Time Press
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651 ARTS and with The Soapbox Presents Returns for 5th Juneteenth, June 21

We Outside: A Brooklyn Juneteenth
By Nina Flowers
(Brooklyn, NY – May 21, 2025) – For its fifth annual Juneteenth Celebration, 651 ARTS – Brooklyn’s premier institution for the African Diasporic performing arts – will once again team up with The Soapbox Presents, the popular performing arts platform celebrating the brilliance of Black and brown people, for the third year to mark the national holiday with “We Outside: A Brooklyn Juneteenth, Vol. III.” Held in partnership with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, this special commemoration of Freedom Day will celebrate culture and community and will take place outdoors at The Plaza at 300 Ashland in Downtown Brooklyn, on Saturday, June 21st from 2pm – 8pm.


Curated with The Soapbox Presents as part of their Juneteenth activations, this year’s “We Outside…” event centers the theme of building coalitions to build community –
drawing inspiration from the legendary Harlem-born artist Faith Ringgold whose art centers around expressions of Blackness and womanhood through a firm anti-racist, feminist lens.
With live performances, food truck offerings and a host of family and community engagement experiences, this celebration will include The Soapbox Presents’ signature Stoop Sessions.

Originally popularized on the stoops of Harlem, this performance will takeover “the stoop” at Ashland Plaza located in front of 651 ARTS’ new home in Downtown Brooklyn. With the music of Frankie Beverly, Earth Wind and Fire, and many more, led by Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Gordon Chambers and featuring vocal powerhouses YahZarah and J. Hoard, this Stoop Session will explore liberation and celebrate the genius of soul classics.

Additional programming highlights for the day are:
Young, Gifted & Black: A Celebration of HBCU Culture – Inspired by HBCU culture, YG&B celebrates the traditions born out of necessity at educational institutions made for African Americans by African Americans and the young people continuing the legacy. This segment will showcase a mix of marching bands, drumlines, and majorette squads.

Featured talent includes: Brooklyn United’s marching band and danceline, the majorette squad Brooklyn Gatorettes; Big Apple Leadership Academy for the Arts’ marching band and danceline; the ICE Cold Experience Drumline; Untouchable Movement Dance Company’s majorette squad and X-Factor Drumline. And this year we’re proud to feature presentations from Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Additionally, “We Outside…” will once again host a unique Black Artisan Market – curated especially for this event by Brooklyn Pop-Up – showcasing Brooklyn’s finest Black makers and entrepreneurs. The marketplace will feature contemporary fashion, accessories, home goods, beauty and wellness and handmade jewelry.


Said 651 ARTS’ Executive Director Toya A. Lillard, “this year, it was really important for us to double down on the intent of creating an event commemorating Liberation Day for Black people in America by really reinforcing the ideals of unity, resilience and perseverance that continue to push us forward as a people through the lens of music, dance and community gathering as a generative way to respond to this moment in our nation’s history. We look forward to welcoming all to ‘come outside’ and join us for this special celebration.”


“As so many things shift for each and every person who calls this country home, it is of the utmost importance that we gather to collectively manifest freedom! It is our mission to create safe spaces where we can actively practice being liberated. Here, at “We Outside: A Brooklyn Juneteenth”, we will commune in the name of Black joy and freedom for all!” said founder and executive director of The Soapbox Presents Marija Abney.

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