Competing rallies at Medgar Evers College bring city politics into sharp focus

Working Families Party endorses Gillibrand, seeks major change in State Senate lineup

March 5, 2018 By Andy Katz Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand accepts an endorsement from the Working Families Party. Photos by Andy Katz

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Few things exemplify the fractious and often contradictory nature of Brooklyn politics than the pair of rallies held at Medgar Evers College on Sunday, on a chilly afternoon.

While state Sen. Jesse Hamilton, a Democrat of the 20th District, led a march around the college in favor of bill S5454, which would require public schools at all levels to incorporate black history courses into their regular curriculum, Working Families Party (WFP) organizers, who fully support bill S5454, introduced candidates — one of whom they hope will eventually unseat Williams — to run against the eight members of the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC). Since 2011, IDC has caucused with the Republican majority, granting outright control of the chamber to the Republican Party.

“The bill is solid, and we’d like to see more of it,” said WFP Communications Director Dom Leon-Davis. “But Sen. Hamilton’s leadership is not what is needed right now.”

In fact, the mood inside the college auditorium, where a full house awaited the party’s official endorsement of U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, went from, “No IDC, please,” to furious denunciation of “Trump Democrats” as a range of speakers unloaded on them.

“IDC, 2018 is the year your reign comes to an end!” announced Heather Stewart of Empire State Indivisible to wild cheers and applause.

“We are on the right side of history!” concurred Natasha Capers of Alliance for Quality Education.

Left: Heather Stewart of Empire State Indivisible and Natasha Capers of Alliance for Quality Education.

Outside, and just down the street, Hamilton was joined by Black Institute founder and National Action Network’s Rev. Kevin McCall, Bertha Lewis, activist Akeem Browder, I.S. 224 teacher Mercedes Liriano-Clark, high school student Malcolm Xavier Combs, 43rd District leader Geoffrey Davis, Lay Down the Guns founder Mike Tucker and many more community activists and leaders.

With the group about 100 strong, they marched along Crown Street, down Franklin, across Montgomery and back onto Bedford Avenue. Drummers from the P.S. 156 Steel Band and members of the Brooklyn United Marching Band led the way. Browder, McCall, Liriano-Clark and Combs hoisted the banner demanding passage of the Black History Class Bill.

This time the chant was: “Black minds matter!’

“My office is just across the street,” Hamilton pointed out after being asked if he had scheduled the rally to offset the Working Families Party (which claims to have scheduled their event first). “So this is a natural place to hold a rally. And we’ve already had several here.”

Geography notwithstanding, National Action Network (NAN), which had initially planned to participate, later backed out. According to Gotham Gazette’s Ben Max and NAN Northeast regional director Kirsten Jon Foy called the Hamilton rally a “thinly veiled counter protest” to the WFP event. Even so, Rev. Kevin McCall, NAN crisis director, attended the rally and spoke immediately after the march.

From left: Mike Tucker, Akeem Browder, Kevin McCall, Malcolm Xavier Combs and Mercedes Liriano-Clark march with their banner around Medgar Evers College.

Meanwhile, after a fulsome introduction by Community Voices Heard executive director Afua Atta-Mensah, Gillibrand took the stage to accept WFP’s endorsement for her first run at re-election.

The senator’s opening remarks paralleled WFP’s denunciation of IDC as she criticized her fellow members of Congress for being “complicit in [the administration’s] assault on our fundamental core values.”

She went on to offer a familiar, but effective progressive platform, including public funding of elections, access to reproductive services, single-payer health care, expedited citizenship for undocumented workers and greater protection for workers seeking to organize.

“I will fight for your family as hard as I would fight for my own!” she concluded, to thunderous applause.

Next WFP presented their slate of IDC challengers.

Jessica Ramos, aiming for Jose Peralta’s Queens District 13, recalled sitting for two hours on a stalled No. 7 train while one young woman nearby wept because she was on her way to start a new job, and another woman spoke of being docked for pay yet again for every moment she was late.

Next up, Robert Jackson, contender for Marisol Alcantara’s 31st Manhattan District, declared to rapturous applause: “No one will stop the blue wave that’s crashing through!”