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She was the gold standard whose memory may now reign over Gold Street. Not many people associate the name Ida B. Wells with Brooklyn, but that could soon change. Gold Street in downtown Brooklyn would be renamed in honor of the revered journalist and civil rights activist. According to the Brooklyn Heights Patch, Councilmember Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn Heights-Downtown) made an application to change the name to reflect the street the remarkable icon lived on for several years after fleeing the South.

A brilliant and uncompromising woman, Barnett lived in Memphis, Tennessee, where she published the Memphis Free Speech newspaper. Her paper routinely published the news – and when possible, the names – associated with lynchings in the South. Wells received death threats regularly from racists offended by her courage and her coverage. When her offices were ransacked and her partner attacked, she left for the North, settling near the water in Brooklyn.

Credit for the street-naming inspiration came from Jacob Morris, head of the Harlem Historical Society, who suggested it to Levin.

“People don’t know” said Morris, “… how formative Brooklyn was in influencing her growth as an activist and as a thinker, and as a person.”

Wells’ great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster lives on the South Side of Chicago. She’s very excited about the proposed street naming and looking forward to meeting Brooklynites there.

This honoring of Wells in Brooklyn comes when many more people are becoming aware of the ugly history and widespread incidence of lynching in both the South and the North. Crowds are flocking to the new lynching memorial at the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Incarceration and the National Museum for Peace and Justice, side by side in Montgomery, Alabama. Visitors are bearing witness to the painful truth of our history and Wells’ name and heroic example are honored there as well, of course.

Tony McGrath, of Martha’s Vineyard, Palm Springs, and New York City, was a pioneer in producing theater on the streets of New York City, has died in his New York City home at the age of 90.

theory that he and all people should live until 140. He based this theory on the premise that living creatures should live to seven times their age of maturity. People mature at 20, therefore they should live to 140.

A graduate of Balboa High School in San Francisco, he went to St. Mary’s College of California with a basketball and football scholarship.

McGrath lived in the Highlands section of Oak Bluffs since 1964, and was a member of Motley Crew’s “The Brain Trust” at Mocha Mott’s since 2001.

He produced the Frederick Douglass speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” on the beach in Oak Bluffs for the past 15 years, as well as lectures, plays, and children’s theater on the Island.

Harlem Renaissance writer and longtime Vineyard resident Dorothy West immortalized him in her novel “The Wedding,” which was about an interracial marriage. She based the characters on McGrath and his wife of 50 years, Abigail McGrath, her niece.

McGrath founded the Off Center Theatre in 1968, and was producing performances through 2017.

The Academy awardwinning actor F. Murray Abraham said, “My work with Off Center Theatre keeps me in touch with honesty.”

McGrath was a veteran of the Broadway stage. He created the part of Big Eddie Stover in Truman Capote’s original 1952 production of “The Grass Harp,” directed by Robert Lewis. He also created the part of “the Stranger” in the original 1955 production of “The Cherry Orchard” directed by David Ross, and was in the acclaimed Joel Friedman production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park. Friedman also directed Tony in “The Odd Couple.”

He specialized in “bum” parts, and was featured in the film “Better Than Ever” opposite Bill Hickey, “The Luckiest Man in the World” by Frank Gilroy, and “Au Pair Chocolat,” directed by his son, Benson McGrath.

He was featured in many early television shows, such as “Route 66,” “77 Sunset Strip,” and “Death Valley Days.”

In 1968, he created Off Center Theatre to give new playwrights a platform and to promote out-of-the-box concepts within a proscenium setting. He was inspired by his street theater experiences in the Bread and Puppet Theatre.

His first theater was in the Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church on 66th Street. Lincoln Center was doing the excavation for its performing space at the time. When people would ask where his theater was located, he would say “Off Lincoln Center,” hence the name Off Center, which was doubly fitting given the type of political and social plays associated with it.

Playwrights such as Trevor Griffen, Barry Keefe, Neall Bell, Norman Wexler, and Tom Labar all had their works performed there. Christine Baranski, Peter Boyle, Dominic Chianese, Ron McLarty, and a host of others, including F. Murray Abraham, performed there.

Off Center also produced plays for children. It was located near a low-income housing project, and it was clear that the children could not afford a ticket. As a result, the children’s plays were performed on the streets, for free. “Theater is a right, not a privilege,” said McGrath.
These were “zany and irreverent versions of children’s classics”; the actor John Leguizamo got his start as Jack in “Jack in the Beanstalk,” S. Epatha Merkerson was the third pig in “Three Little Pigs,” and F. Murray Abraham, who was quite well-known when he joined, was the prince in Cinderella. The children’s theater company used fairy tales to emphasize women’s rights, diversity, and social issues in a way that was an alternative to Disney.

Under McGrath’s direction, “Biting the Apple,” street theater done in comic book style, about the worm of apathy in the Big Apple, toured the city streets, and “Hope for Life” performed a different episode every week outdoors at lunchtime for those working people who missed their soap opera. It asked the question, Can a girl from a small Latin-American island find happiness as a secretary on Wall Street?

He is survived by Abigail McGrath, his wife of 50 years, Benson McGrath, his son, and Jason Rosen, his stepson.

A memorial will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Off Center Theatre, 484 West 43rd St., No. 37E, New York, NY 10036, or electronically by PayPal: http://bit.ly/McGrathdonation.

By Deborah Jacobs, CCMEC Fundraising Committee

Amidst of the wave of community activism throughout Central Brooklyn in the mid-60’s, the Ad Hoc Planning Committee, predecessor of what’s known today as the Community Council for Medgar Evers College, joined the struggle to create CUNY College No. 7, now known as Medgar Evers College.

The ancestral legacy of the “Council” is rich in terms of its composition and contributions to the creation, academic evolution and present status of Medgar Evers College as a beacon of educational success and achievement in the Central Brooklyn community.

So once again, we can offer praises and thanks to our Council President Katie Davis for leading this group of committed council members to a successful completion of our 2018 Annual Scholarship and Leadership Luncheon.

Thanks to our Scholarship Committee, chaired by Dr. Joan Tropnas, and the tireless work of Gloria Wilson, Associate Treasurer, the council raised money for scholarships from a combination of ticket, raffle and journal ad sales and annual standing awards such as the Lucille Rose Memorial, the Dr. Cecil Gloster Memorial and the Green–Chavis Scholarship Funds.

Our scholarship awardees were truly impressive this year. Youth Leadership Awards were given to two rising stars graduating from the Medgar Evers Preparatory High School and who also engaged in studies at the college. Codi-Ann Reid will be studying biomedical engineering at Harvard University and Dervin Johnson aerospace engineering at MIT this fall.

Medgar Evers College founder Job Mashariki and his presenter former Assemblyman and Councilman Al Vann reminded us of the history of their various struggles thereby emphasizing the importance of persistence in the face of ALL adversities. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Paul Wooten inspired the youth through his anecdotal remembrances of the perseverance of his awardee, Rev. Taharka Robinson.