New York Amsterdam News Issue Oct.3-9, 2024

HOW COSTS OF GUN VIOLENCE HURT LOVED ONES LEFT BEHIND

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Adams turns to Black church as his saving grace after indictments

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

With additional reporting by TANDY LAU Amsterdam News Staff/Report for America

Eric Adams has often declared that he was ordained by God to be mayor of New York City, an assertion that has opened him up to praise and condemnation alike. He carried that message all the way into Gracie Mansion with support from the city’s Black churches and clergy. In the recent days since his federal indictment, the mayor has surrounded himself with the cloak of “the Black Church” and his faith — a decision not everyone agrees with.

Historically, much of the Black political power that civil rights figures amassed came from the men and women in the church, the mosque, and the synagogue. Plenty of Black electeds, like Georgia’s U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who also holds a title as reverend, continue to lead by faith and policy.

Adams’s mentor and longtime friend, Reverend Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network (NAN), is perhaps one of his biggest supporters. Sharpton has urged Gov. Kathy Hochul to not forcibly remove Adams from office, a gubernatorial power that hasn’t

New York City

Mayor Eric Adams delivers remarks at Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Cathedral Church of New York’s celebration for installation of Reverend Stephen Green in Queens on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

been flexed since 1932 in New York.

Adams held a press conference at Gracie Mansion on Sept. 25, with several Black clergy members a day after becoming the first sitting NYC mayor to be indicted on federal criminal charges. The indictment ramped up a months-long Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into his administration and other city agencies for bribery and campaign finance fraud.

Speakers included New York State National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President Dr. Hazel

Jackie Rowe-Adams,

“I’ve known this young man for over 40 years,” Dukes said. “He’s going to have his day in court and we’re going to stand by him. We came this morning to pray for him because prayer changes things. I am asking all New Yorkers to hear his side, to let him have a day in court. Let him have his day in court

See ADAMS INDICTMENTS on page 29

Former AM Michael Blake floats mayoral bid amid Adams controversy

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

As one mayoral ship sinks, so rises another?

A handful of prospective mayoral candidates had already announced their 2025 bids to assume the mayor’s seat before the federal indictment of Eric Adams on bribery and fraud charges last week. Now, even more have taken his legal troubles as chum in the water and a sign that the city needs new leadership.

Former Bronx Assemblymember Michael Blake falls in the latter camp.

“Prayer,” Blake told the AmNews about what inspired this decision, “and then [paying] attention to what’s been happening.”

Former Assemblymember Michael Blake said he is “seriously considering” and having “conversations” about running for mayor of New York City. (Photo contributed by Michael Blake)

MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS INFORMATION

Blake, who is founder and CEO of the Kairos: Democracy Project, told the AmNews that he is “seriously considering” and engaging in “conversations” to see how to move forward with running for mayor of New York City. He declined to say who or what entities he was speaking with.

“Prayer is conversation with the Lord. It’s really [about] what is best for the city and can I be a vessel to help in some way, and at the end of the day, if that answer is yes, then it’s on the people to decide,” said Blake about his faith and political motivations. “But first and foremost, you pray for the city, and you pray for the people. You don’t pray for yourself.”

A native Bronxite, Blake was a sports journalist before he entered politics. He became

a fierce campaign manager and former President Barack Obama’s Iowa Caucus Constituency vote director in 2008. After Obama took office, Blake served as White House associ-

ate director of public engagement, deputy associate director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, national deputy operation vote director for Obama in 2012, and vice chair at large of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2017 to 2021.

Locally, Blake served in the Bronx state assembly, representing the 79th District, from 2015 to 2022. He replaced former Assemblymember Eric Stevenson; ironically, Stevenson was found guilty of federal corruption and bribery charges in 2014.

In the past, Blake ran for New York City public advocate, but lost the general special election in 2019 to incumbent Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. Should Adams resign and Williams become the interim mayor and run in the special election to remain mayor, it would present an interesting opportunity for a rematch between Blake and Williams. Blake also ran for the 15th Congressional District in 2020. He lost in the primary and the seat went to current Congressmember Ritchie Torres.

Blake said he’s been busy with Kairos recently and laser-focused on mobilizing local and national voters for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz as president and vice president.

Eventually, he said, he wants to address issues such as affordable housing and inflation with his platform, but hasn’t dived into fundraising or formed an official campaign yet.

N. Dukes, Rev. Herbert Daughtry, Harlem Mothers Stop Another Violent End (S.A.V.E.)

Bishop Dr. Chantel R. Wright, Sheikh Musa Drammeh, and Bishop Gerald Seabrooks.

NYers canvass across purple districts nationwide for Harris-Walz

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

Throughout September and October, buses full of dedicated canvassers from New York’s worker unions and Democratic party are targeting “purple” battleground districts and states that could help Vice President Kamala Harris and other electeds win their respective races in November.

Door-knocking before an election is a time-honored tradition, and other than during the pandemic, considered the best method to connect with voters by meeting them at home or in the streets. Many canvassers have flooded Rockland County and Nassau County, as well as nearby Pennsylvania, in an effort to swing local voters to choose Democratic candidates.

“This is an exciting day for us because we’re getting Brooklynites, along with 1199ers (union members) to go to Pennsylvania, to really put our civic work into play. This is an opportunity for Brooklynites to help deciding states turn blue,” said Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who’s the Brooklyn Dem Party boss. Her party and 1199 Service Employees International Union (1199SEIU) members began their bus trips on Saturday, Sept. 21.

“We are here in big force. We have food. We have drinks. We’re energized,” said Bichotte Hermelyn. “We’re going to spend the whole day out in Pennsylvania knocking on doors, encouraging people to go out and vote early, and encouraging people to know that they can protect their rights just by voting.”

Bichotte Hermelyn said the canvassers mainly speak with people about equal

rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, gun control, and access to healthcare.

Cynthia Neita, 72, an 1199SEIU administrative organizer, said she hoped for positive answers and positive vibes as she boarded her bus. “It’s important to remind workers who can vote, especially young people who think they don’t matter,” Neita said.

“I hope they’re open to the conversation,” said Rosa Cruz, a Brooklyn Dem from Hunter College. “Everyone understands the value of the vote. It’s important that we’re there to help make that final decision.”

Like countless other New York State Dem-

ocratic clubs, county parties, and political groups with bus loads of canvassers, the focus is not just on getting Harris elected as president. There’s also a bevy of state and congressional races in Republican-leaning districts that Dems are scrambling to flip.

“New York is now a battleground for the first time in decades,” said Ny Whitaker, a former White House senior advisor and founder of Project Nyne Productions, who created the campaign group New York for Harris.

“People talk a lot about swing states—Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Georgia,

Walzing all over Vance

By HERB BOYD Special to the AmNews

As expected, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Democratic vice-president contender, took his GOP opponent Ohio Sen. JD Vance to task for his repeated claims that Haitian immigrants were consuming their neighbors’ pets. That was about as close as the candidates came to including people of color in their first and only debate on Tuesday evening. Vance’s lies and denials were the key takeaways from the debate, if there was a highlight.

On more than one question from the CBS moderators, Vance either dodged or hedged in response, most notably when he was asked during an exchange with Walz if Trump lost the 2020 election. “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance said. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their minds in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?” Walz’s response was “That is a damning non-answer.”

That might have been the most egregious sidestep, but there were several others in which Vance continued to stand behind Trump, careful not to say anything that might damage his candidacy or Trump’s. Rather than respond to questions about the past, Vance repeated that he was more concerned about the future. He refused to say if he would certify a defeat by Trump in the coming election.

Immigrants have been repeatedly targeted by Trump as villains, and it was a gambit in Vance’s move against Walz to bring them up. “Look, in Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes,” Vance said. “The people that I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’s open border. It is a disgrace, Tim. And I actually think I agree with you. I think you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think that Kamala Harris does.”

Without referring directly to Vance’s allegation, Walz placed the matter in a broader context, stating that “...We can’t blame immigrants…that’s not the case that’s happening in many cities. The fact of the matter is, we don’t have enough naturally affordable housing, but we can make sure that the government’s there to help kickstart it, create that, create that base.”

On foreign policy, Walz drubbed Vance, particularly on the conflict in the Middle East. “October 7th, Hamas terrorists massacred over 1,400 Israelis and took prisoners,” Walz said. “...Israel’s ability to be able to defend itself is absolutely fundamental; getting its hostages back, fundamental; and ending the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But the expansion

Group photo of Brooklyn Democratic Party canvassers before boarding their bus on Saturday, Sept. 21. (Ariama C. Long photos)

A coach bus of 1199SEIU union canvassers get ready to leave Brooklyn county to door-knock registered voters in Bethlehem, Pa. in September 2024.

Climate Week wraps: NYC Council passes bill for solar panels on public buildings

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

Councilmember Sandy Nurse was buzzing to push through her climate and renewable energy bill as the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Climate Week, also known as Climate Week NYC, wrapped this Monday.The bill passed with huge support.

Two-thirds of all of New York City’s emissions are from aging “pre-war” buildings, typically built between the 1880s and 1939, or before World War II, according to a report from the mayor’s office.

“The climate crisis has reached a break point, demanding swift, unprecedented action,” Nurse said. “New York City must lead in clean, renewable energy by example and install solar panels on NYC buildings. Every opportunity to cut our reliance on fossil fuels must be seized now, or we risk putting our city and future generation(s) in grave jeopardy.”

Nurse and her climate coalition aimed to pass public solar legislation in time for Climate Week, which was from September 22 to 29, and to establish a national model for developing clean energy on public buildings.

“Building a more sustainable city requires

ambitious policies and sustained efforts to build green infrastructure,” Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said in a statement. “As we mark Climate Week NYC, we are excited to pass critical legislation that will result in

the installation of solar power on more cityowned buildings, which is an important step to combating the climate crisis. While there is more work to do, we are proud to have advanced recent legislative efforts to

build solar canopies in parking lots, encourage the installation of solar and green roofs, mandate the municipal fleet to consist of zero-emissions vehicles, and more.”

Nurse’s bill, Int. No. 353-A, requires that the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) install at least 150 megawatts of solar panel roof systems on city-owned buildings by 2035. DCAS will be required to report eligible and ineligible rooftops, and identify city-owned properties that already have solar panels installed. Funding for the installations would come from city capital and expense funds. There is also potential for additional funding through Power Purchase Agreements the city may enter into, according to Nurse’s office.

The solar panel bill passed in the City Council on Thursday, Sept. 26, with 46 cosponsors and a supermajority of votes.

Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa, who also worked with Nurse on the legislation, said that “ensuring union jobs are available to assist New York with meeting its climate goals” is crucial.

According to the state comptroller’s 2022 Green and Growing: Employment Opportunities in New York’s Sustainable Economy

Criminal justice advocate Jon-Adrian Velazquez cleared of wrongful homicide conviction

By TANDY LAU Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

Puerto Rican flags were in abundance as Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez emerged from the Manhattan courts this past Monday, Sept. 30, newly recognized by the law as an innocent man. In a packed hearing that lasted a New York minute, he was cleared of a 1998 murder conviction that landed him in prison for 23 years, seven months, and eight days.

While Velazquez was released in 2021 through executive clemency granted by the departing ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, he remained on parole for almost three years in what he called “another punitive sanction after a wrongful conviction.” Last Tuesday, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office — the same agency that prosecuted him — filed a joint motion to vacate his conviction and dismiss his indictment.

Monday’s hearing was a formality. Judge Abraham Clott granted the motion.

On the eve of his exoneration, Velazquez told the AmNews he hoped the news would serve as a platform for others going through the same thing.

“It’s important to keep hope alive for that many people, because we have hundreds of thousands of people potentially that are innocent, languishing in prisons right now,” he said over the phone on Sunday. “It’s been about me [getting] here, and I appreciate it, but it’s really about the movement. It’s about the people, it’s about the injustices, and it’s about how we can leverage our

voices and come together to really try to demand change that’s necessary.”

As for himself, Velazquez was a “mix of emotions” before the official vacatur. He was certainly anxious, but knew he would be elated.

Yet, the moment was also bittersweet in what he coined an “unveiling of a tragedy.” The conviction stems from the 1998 murder of retired police detective Albert Ward during the robbery of a Harlem gambling parlor.

Two previous motions to vacate were dismissed by the court and opposed by the Manhattan D.A.’s Office under Cyrus Vance Jr. But Velazquez re-filed in 2022 following the election of Harlem’s own Alvin Bragg,

who launched his Post-Conviction Justice Unit shortly after taking office.

Technology developed after the original trial showed Velazaquez’s DNA was absent on a betting slip handled by the shooter.

And the Manhattan D.A.’s reinvestigation found no evidence connecting him to the murder and that “eyewitnesses provided inconsistent descriptions.”

“JJ Velazquez has lived in the shadow of his conviction for more than 25 years, and I hope that today brings with it a new chapter for him,” said Bragg in his statement. “I am grateful to our Post-Conviction Justice Unit for its commitment to impartially uncovering the facts and evidence in this case.”

Cheering from the sidelines were old pals, including Clarence Maclin, one of the stars of the film “Sing Sing,” in which Velazquez plays a supporting role as himself. The two go back far further, serving time together in the eponymous Ossining-based maximum security prison.

“We [were] inside for a long time together,” said Maclin to the AmNews. “I knew he didn’t belong there. I’m glad that he got what he was supposed to get, I’m glad he got recognized as an innocent man.”

Playwright Brent Buell — who co-produced “Sing Sing” and volunteered for prison arts program Rehabilitation Through the Arts during Velazquez’s incarceration — also showed up for his longtime friend.

“From the minute I met JJ, I knew that he had a dedication and determination to help other people, even as he fought to prove his own innocence,” said Buell. “That was the most strengthening thing that he had. He was so in tune with the plight of other people and what needed to be done to rectify situations … what we’ve been able to do working together and in this time is just such an indication of what we’re losing as a nation by holding people inside.”

So while the pun “end of an error” was stitched onto Velazquez’s baseball hat on Monday, it was hardly a fresh start for the longtime criminal justice reform advocate. He built a reputation as a prolific “jailhouse lawyer” while incarcerated, educating himself on the “language of law,” down to the deficiencies in DNA science used for exonerations. Through his studies, he not only

See VELAZQUEZ on page 35

See SOLAR on page 27

Councilmember Sandy Nurse (podium) at climate rally on September 26 (New York City Council photo)

Jon-Adrian Velazquez (center) leaves the courthouse after his conviction is vacated with his fiance (center right) and his mom (center left). (Tandy Lau photo)

Brooklyn-bred attorney’s mission is to end gender-based violence, genital mutilation

By AARON FOLEY AmNews News Editor

Around age 4 or 5 is when Natasha Johnson first felt “unsettled” when she sensed any sort of injustice. “I felt very sort of charged [with] wanting to right wrongs,” she said.

That early sense, plus witnessing arguments between her parents and later questioning why authoritative figures were combative toward her elementary school classmates, put Johnson on the path to a law career. Now, the born-and-raised Brooklynite is one of the leading advocates for calling attention to genderbased violence and genital mutilation and cutting, both of which informs not only her work as an attorney but in other traumainformed practices.

Natasha Johnson (Courtesy photo)

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“My work in some ways is retroactive,” Johnson said. “We are always going to be responsive to the acts of perpetrators. However, knowing that the work that I do lives in the space of proactiveness, we try to meet someplace in the middle.”

There are a billion survivors of female genital mutilation and cutting worldwide, Johnson said, with about 500,000 in the United States —65,000 of whom are within the five boroughs of New York City.

With former City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal, Johnson co-authored the guidelines that became the blueprint for New York City’s first task force on female genital mutilation (FGM) and cutting; after two years, an initial report assessing the task force’s recommendations is due at the end of next January, while elements of the task force itself are being replicated for similar initiatives in Seattle and Connecticut, Johnson said.

“That’s three out of 50 states, so we have a lot of work to do,” she said.

Johnson, 47, first started engaging with gender-based violence while in law school. She said that while working at Safe Horizon, a nonprofit supporting survivors of domestic violence, she would frequently worry about her clients— women trying to get home safely while their batterers might still be lurking, whether orders of protection would be carried out for survivors, or if survivors even had enough money to get food for themselves and their families.

Working with such traumatic situations for so long led Johnson to seek some kind

of outlet where she could periodically recenter herself. She began practicing yoga, and realized that practice could also assist the many survivors she came in contact with. “It became a tool for clients who were experiencing the harm [of genderbased violence],” she said.

She founded the Zuna Group, an umbrella for the many tools she’s developed to help survivors. “I wanted to create infrastructure where the business of being good was supported,” she said. Under the Zuna umbrella is Globalizing Gender, a broader initiative in raising awareness of FGM and the harm of gender-based violence; Dotzz, an app that covertly helps link survivors of gender-based violence; and a new endeavor in using yoga mats as a way of raising awareness of FGM.

“One of the points of yoga is to find space in your body and find space in your home,” Johnson said. She was inspired to create a line of yoga mats after observing a leading yoga teacher’s mat worn down to threads. “If you can’t find space on your yoga mat, then how do you engage with your body?”

The yoga mats should be in practitioners’ hands by the end of the month, although Johnson is fully aware the recent longshore workers’ strike might put a crimp in those plans. In the meantime, she remains true to making sure that her work is centered where it all began.

“I come and go very frequently—I very literally feel the world is my oyster,” she said, “but I’ll always have a home in Brooklyn.”

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If you’re planning to get down on one knee, pop the question or make your relationship official in some other way, use this time to begin thinking about your finances. While talking about money can feel anything but romantic, the financial foundation you set before tying the knot can help you and your partner build together for a lifetime.

“Being in a committed relationship can change how you spend, save, invest and plan for the future. But financial compatibility between two partners is rarely achieved without discussing what money means to each of you, including the “money messages” you received growing up,” said Erika Shaw, matrimonial advisor at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. “Communication and transparency around money is critical to the health of any partnership, especially as life evolves.”

Here are some considerations as you plan your financial future together:

• Determine how you’ll share expenses. Couples have different methods for managing daily finances. None are right or wrong – it all depends on each couple’s preference. Consider how much each partner earns and discuss how each of you will contribute to these expenses. Will you combine all your money in a joint account to pay expenses, or keep separate accounts and delegate responsibility for bills? Maybe you’ll consider a mix of both.

• Be honest about any financial baggage. Any debts coming into the relationship -student loans, credit card debt or other financial liabilities – should be discussed, as they may impede your ability to buy a home, start a family or make certain career and life choices. Consider having an indepen-

dent third party or financial advisor serve as a sounding board in your conversations.

• Set your financial goals. Agreeing on your top financial goals and aligning your saving and investment strategies accordingly can get your marriage off to a strong financial start. What does your current lifestyle look like, and how might that change in the future? Do you want to save for a down payment on a home? Are there other large expenses on the horizon, such as a vacation or a car? Be specific about the timing, cost and priority of each of your financial goals.

• Consider how future life changes might impact goals. Are either of you going back to school or changing careers? If you are considering children or already have children, how would you approach childcare and educational decisions? Do you expect to care for aging family in the future? All these choices will impact your finances.

• Have open discussions about past experiences. Making your personal finances— past, present and future—an ongoing part of your life together can help you weather disagreements about money. Explore how your views on money were shaped by your upbringing and your family’s approach to spending, saving and investing. Don’t shy away from talking through financial disagreements, as they often represent deeper divisions that can affect your entire relationship.

Countless money decisions await every couple. The sooner you begin talking about your finances—and financial expectations— the better equipped you both will be to plan your future together.

Costs of gun violence hurt loved ones left behind. NY Victim Compensation program

doesn't meet their needs — but it could

By HELINA SELEMON Amsterdam News Staff

“There’s no pain like that pain,” says Peggy Herrera, tears welling up, about the death of her son. Herrera describes her 24-year-old son Justin as her “little man.” He’s reflected in photos in almost every part of her Long Island home, where she moved from Jamaica, Queens, at his plea for somewhere safer and different to live. Anyone who talks to her would immediately note her expressions of love and doting care of her son.

Justin, who stood 5 feet 11 inches, played football competitively since childhood, and struggled with the loss of his father at a young age, was celebrating his birthday with friends on July 2 when he was shot to death.

“When my son was killed, I didn’t know what the next step was,” Herrera said. She needed financial support, but said she was unaware of victim’s compensation at the time of his murder and misinformed about when and how to get it.

New York’s Victim Compensation program has awarded victims and survivors of violent crime since the federal law was enacted in 1984. The safety net of victim compensation is meant to provide relief, but for many, that relief doesn’t go far enough to save them from financial turmoil.

Life for many is thrown into chaos after surviving a gun injury or losing a loved one to gun violence. Home may no longer be a safe haven, survivors face months of recovery and doctors’ visits, and families struggle with funeral costs. The loss may have been a parent, a child, a sibling, a provider, a leader of the family. Everyone grieves for a loss or altered life differently, and the high costs of therapy and trauma recovery often keep mental health care out of reach.

In New York, applicants may qualify for up to $30,000 in lost wages or support, up to $2,500 for moving expenses, or up to $2,500 for crime scene cleanup after an incident of gun violence. For funeral costs, the reward is $6,000, which has not increased since the 1990s. Some recipients said these amounts barely cover the costs of funerals or relocating from their homes for safety. For example, the average cost of a funeral with a burial vault is $9,995, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

Victim compensation for many, whether reimbursement, one-time, or recurring payment, only scrapes the surface of financial burdens that follow the violent injury or death of a loved one.

If you or a loved one was a victim of a violent crime, scan this QR Code to apply for victim’s compensation.

If you need assistance to apply or help with a compensation claim, use your ZIP code to find a victims’ assistance program near you.

Telling their stories

Gwendolyn Halsey, a mother of five and retiree from the New York CIty Transit Authority, said all of her children have been shot, and one died. She remembers the day that her son James Velz Halsey was killed six years ago: It was a Saturday, and he had asked her to come to Brooklyn to ad lib on a song of his. Her son and grandson had just come back from the store when she overheard an argument start outside their home. She said she partially opened the door to see if everything was OK. He replied, “Yeah, Ma.” Shortly after she went

back in the house, she heard three shots. “I was frozen. I couldn’t move,” she said.

Halsey is left with memories of her son’s body splayed on her front steps and having to clean the brain matter left behind after the police came to the scene. She said she received some victim compensation — a one-time payment for funeral expenses — but currently doesn’t have a home of her own and has been staying with a relative.

Tragedy came to Janifer Taylor’s doorstep, too. She was living in Virginia when

Photos of Peggy Herrera’s son Justin, in her Long Island, NY, home. Justin was fatally shot on July 2, 2022. (Photo by Damaso Reyes)

Compensation

her daughter, Dawn Peterson, asked her to move to New York to live with her in 2020. She couldn’t have anticipated that she would have just 16 months left with her only child. Peterson, then a mother of a 2-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, was gunned down on December 17, 2021, in front of their home by an unknown man. Taylor was home when she heard the shots. Footage she said she later saw from a neighbor’s security camera captured Dawn’s final moments.

“She was screaming, ‘Mommy, please help me,’” she said. “That’s the pain that I live with every day and the aftermath. It’s like she’s on vacation — she may come home one day, but then you feel it; they are not coming back. It’s a pain that never goes away.”

Peterson’s case remains unsolved, Taylor said. In the aftermath, she received an emergency housing voucher, but finding a place proved difficult.

“It’s considered an emergency housing voucher, but it took me two and a half years to find a place to live because a lot of people didn’t take this voucher,” she said.

Taylor received compensation to help cover funeral expenses in a week’s time, and she credits Carolyn Dixon and Where Do We Go From Here, a support organization for grieving families, for helping her navigate that process. “I was one of the ones that did get the $6,000 and I’m appreciative, but…it definitely wasn’t enough,” she said.

In New York, applicants can qualify for up to a $3,000 emergency award within 24 hours of filing, but when it comes to processing compensation claims, it takes 107 days on average for the agency to either award or deny an entire claim application.

The 13-year-old murder case of Monica Cassaberry’s son Jamal Singleton Sr. remains unsolved. “I think that a lot of people don’t understand,” she said. “No mother should have to bury a child. That’s not scientifically correct. It’s wrong. They should be burying us, not vice versa.”

Her son’s case made her unwilling to return to work at the police department. “After I went out on extended leave, I never went back to the police department,” she said. “I helped solve all these crimes…I felt like, why should I go back to a system that didn’t do nothing for me or mine?”

Cassaberry said her son’s shooting happened diagonally across the street from her. Soon after, she moved into her brother’s home before a shooting of her sister at her brother’s home forced her to move her family into a homeless shelter. She said it was difficult to uproot and move from her fully furnished three-bedroom home as a single mom in the aftermath of her son’s murder.

“My kids have been traumatized more than once…and then, not only are you getting traumatized by the shooting, you turn around, move somewhere else that don’t

work out, then you end up in the shelter system,” she said.

“Any family who has been inflicted or impacted by gun violence should never be in the shelter. That’s the worst place,” Cassaberry added. “They need to have something set up for families and victims of crime. They need to have special housing for us.”

Cassaberry said housing is an under-realized need for victims of crime.

“A lot of families are still stuck in places where they have bullet holes in a window or a wall,” she said. “I would if I had the heart — I would have still been living where my

son was shot diagonally from where I lived. I couldn’t do it.”

A myriad of compensation programs

New York has more than 200 victim assistance programs — nonprofits and advocacy organizations where New Yorkers can get help with applying for victim compensation. Pathways, a Kings Against Gun Violence’s (KAVI) program, is one of them, opening its doors on the third floor of Restoration Plaza in Bed-Stuy back in July. Program Coordinator James Peele said their program takes walk-in clients, along

with referrals made at Kings County Hospital, where KAVI makes connections with future clients.

“I’m hoping that we are able to allow the community to know what resources and funds are available to them as crime survivors and victims of crime,” Peele said. “Different things that they may need — helping them with finances, funeral costs, hospital bills — some resources that they might not even have known were available to them and that they’re owed as victims of crime.” Gun violence is one of many reasons

KAVI Executive Director Ramik WIlliams (left), Pathways Program Coordinator James Peele (center) and NY State Senator Jabari Brisport (right) officially open Pathways center in Bed-Stuy. (Photo by Helina Selemon)

Mothers (left to right) Janifer Taylor, Monica Cassaberry, and Gwendolyn Halsey. (Photo by Damaso Reyes)

AmNews hosts 10th annual Labor Awards Breakfast

By ANDY HARRIS Special to the AmNews

On Monday, Sept. 30, the Amsterdam News honored two union members for their contributions to the labor movement in New York City at the paper’s annual Labor Awards Breakfast, held at 1199SEIU headquarters in Midtown Manhattan and featuring speeches from labor union members, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.).

Gillibrand spoke about achievements of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). She also referenced the campaign she has been organizing with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Hochul.

“We have made 1.2 million phone calls so far. We’ve knocked on 350,000 doors — we’re averaging 70,000 doors a week,” the junior senator said about the labor movement that these leaders are pushing in New York. “Labor taught me how to do this, so I am only a student of what you have already accomplished in this state. That’s what it’s going to take to win tough elections.”

Clarke acknowledged Amsterdam News publisher Elinor Tatum for continuing to bring people together to have a conversation about unionization. She also congratulated the awardees of the morning, Mario Cilento and Vin-

cent Alvarez, and thanked both for their contributions.

“This honor is a mere recognition, given the years you have put into building here in the city of New York,” Gillibrand said to the awardees. “I inherited you from my mom as you were climbing the ranks, and it’s great to be here with you.” She went on to advocate for the voices of the unheard to be recognized.

“Our stories have been relegated to the background, and many don’t know that the people united will never be defeated,” Gillibrand said to the applause of the crowd.

A refrain among all speakers was the push to elect Vice President Kamala Harris as the next president of the U.S.: “Am I allowed to start politics here?” While thanking union members for their work, Hochul scratched the itch to speak about the political state of the country and the Nov. 5 election.

“What I am working on is making sure that Yvette Clarke is now in the majority with her friend Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker of the House,” Hochul said.

She also took time to speak to the many issues her administration has been tackling in the name of the labor movement. She invoked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s name to connect both the Civil Rights Movement and labor movement.

“When you bring the power of unions with the power of civil rights, that is an unstoppable coalition,” the governor said. “When Dr. King marched on Washington

in 1963, who was he surrounded with? Union members.”

Tatum followed the governor’s speech by thanking her for her words, and introduced the men of the morning.

Mario Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, spoke about the importance of diversity within the organization. “Our members come from every race, religion, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation…no questions asked, everyone is welcome, no one is turned away,” he said. He also commented about their union’s range in who they are able to reach out to:

“Our members live and work in every city, town, village, municipality, locality, neighborhood, community, and ZIP code in the state.” Alvarez is president of the New York Central Labor Council for the AFL-CIO. In his acceptance speech, like many before him, he alluded to the urgency of the moment the country is facing, both in the union fight and political fight. Like Cilento, he addressed the mobilization effort to have New Yorkers registered to vote.

“So many of us, over the years, have been fighting to make sure that we have that strong link between politics, between power in communities,” Alvarez said. “We have over 1 million union families that live in New York City that are registered to vote in New York City…and we will do everything that we can do to mobilize them this year in the national election.”

Amsterdam News publisher Tatum with National President Elise Bryant of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW); Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke; 1199SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Milly Silva; and officers of the NYC Chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW). (Bill Moore photos)

2024 Honoree NYS AFL-CIO President Mario Cliento (left), Congressmember Yvette D. Clarke (center), Teamsters Local 237 Gregory “Greg” Floyd (right).

Publisher Elinor Tatum (far left), 2024 Honorees NYC Central Labor Council AFL-CIO President Vincent Alvarez and NYS AFL-CIO President Mario Cliento, Teamsters Local 237 Gregory “Greg” Floyd (far right), and 1199SEIU President George Gresham in front.

Governor Kathy Hochul

U.S. Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)

John Amos, patriarch on ‘Good Times’ and an Emmy nominee for the blockbuster ‘Roots,’ dies at 84

By BETH HARRIS Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — John Amos, who starred as the family patriarch on the hit 1970s sitcom “Good Times” and earned an Emmy nomination for his role in the seminal 1977 miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 84.

He died Aug. 21 of natural causes in Los Angeles. Amos’ publicist, Belinda Foster, confirmed the news of his death Tuesday.

He played James Evans Sr. on “Good Times,” which featured one of television’s first Black two-parent families. Produced by Norman Lear and co-created by actor Mike Evans, who co-starred on “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” it ran from 1974-79 on CBS.

“That show was the closest depiction in reality to life as an African American family living in those circumstances as it could be,” Amos told Time magazine in 2021.

Among Amos’ film credits were “Let’s Do It Again” with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, “Coming to America” with Eddie Murphy and its 2021 sequel, “Die Hard 2,” “Madea’s Witness Protection” and “Uncut Gems” with Adam Sandler. He was in Ice Cube and Dr. Dre’s 1994 video “Natural Born Killaz.”

Amos’ “Good Times” character, along with wife Florida, played by Esther Rolle, originated on another Lear show, “Maude.” James Evans often worked two manual labor jobs to support his family that included three children, with Jimmie Walker becoming a breakout star as oldest son J.J.

Such was the show’s impact that Alicia Keys, Rick Ross, the Wu-Tang Clan are among the musicians who name-checked Amos or his character in their lyrics.

“Many fans consider him their TV father,” his son Kelly Christopher Amos said in a statement. “He lived a good life. His legacy will live on in his outstanding works in television and film as an actor. My father loved working as an actor throughout his entire life He was my dad, my best friend, and my hero.”

The elder Amos and Rolle were eager to portray a positive image of a Black family, struggling against the odds in a public housing project in Chicago. But they grew frustrated at seeing Walker’s character being made foolish and his role expanded.

“The fact is that Esther’s criticism, and also that of John and others — some of it very pointed and personal — seriously damaged my appeal in the Black community,” Walker wrote in his 2012 memoir “Dyn-O-Mite! Good Times, Bad Times, Our Times.”

After three seasons of critical acclaim and high ratings, Amos was fired. He had become critical of the show’s white writing staff creating storylines that he felt were inauthentic to the Black characters.

“There were several examples where I said, ‘No, you don’t do these things. It’s anathema to Black society. I’ll be the expert on that, if you don’t mind,’”

he told Time magazine. “And it got confrontational and heated enough that ultimately my being killed off the show was the best solution for everybody concerned, myself included.”

Amos’ character was killed in a car accident. Walker lamented the situation. “If the decision had been up to me, I would have preferred that John stay and

the show remain more of an ensemble,” he wrote in his memoir. “Nobody wanted me up front all the time, including me.” Amos and Lear later reconciled and they shared a hug at a “Good Times” live TV reunion special in 2019.

Amos quickly bounced back, landing the role of an adult Kunta Kinte, the centerpiece of “Roots,” based on Alex Haley’s novel set during and after the era of slavery in the U.S. The miniseries was a critical and ratings blockbuster, and Amos earned one of its 37 Emmy nominations.

“I knew that it was a life-changing role for me, as an actor and just from a humanistic standpoint,” he told Time magazine. “It was the culmination of all of the misconceptions and stereotypical roles that I had lived and seen being offered to me. It was like a reward for having suffered those indignities.”

Born John Allen Amos Jr. on Dec. 27, 1939, in Newark, New Jersey, he was the son of an auto mechanic. He graduated from Colorado State University with a sociology degree and played on the school’s football team.

Before pursuing acting, he moved to New York and was a social worker at the Vera Institute of Justice, working with defendants at the Brooklyn House of Detention.

He had a brief professional football career, playing in various minor leagues. He signed a free-agent contract in 1967 with the Kansas City Chiefs, but coach Hank Stram encouraged Amos to pursue his interest in writing instead. He had jobs as an advertising and comedy writer before moving in front of the camera.

Amos’ first major TV role was as Gordy Howard, the weatherman on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” from 1970-73. As the show’s only Black character, he played straight man to bombastic anchor Ted Baxter.

He was a frequent guest star on “The West Wing,” and his other TV appearances included “Hunter,” “The District,” “Men in Trees,” “All About the Andersons,” “Two and a Half Men,” and “The Ranch.”

In 2020, Amos was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. He served in the New Jersey National Guard. He is survived by daughter Shannon, a former entertainment executive, and and Kelly Christopher, a Grammy-nominated video music director and editor. They were from his first marriage to Noel Mickelson, whom he met in college. His second marriage to actor Lillian Lehman also ended in divorce. Associated Press Writer Kaitlyn Huamani contributed to this report.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For The Good Times! New York Amsterdam News (1962-); May 8, 1976; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Amsterdam News pg. A1

(AP Photo/Nick Ut, File photo)

Union Matters

Longshoremen’s strike is about automation, preventing job losses

By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff and CHRIS LEE

Special to the AmNews

Saying that wages have not kept up with inflation, nearly 50,000 longshore workers went on strike at midnight on October 1, which is likely to crimp the flow of commercial goods to consumers across the country.

Longshore workers from New York and New Jersey are out picketing in Red Hook, Brooklyn, at the Port Liberty terminal in Staten Island, and at New Jersey terminals in Newark, Elizabeth, and Jersey City.

The union workers, members of the North Bergen, N.J.-based International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), are demanding an increase in their wages from port freight management companies that bargain under the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents large shipping companies and containerized freight management companies that run the port facilities.

ILA members move commercial goods like cars and car parts, food products, and customer products from container ships to shore-based trucks at 36 ports along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The strike is expected to affect imported perishable items first, like grapes from Chile, bananas from Central America, and orange juice from Brazil. Should the strike go past six weeks, major importers and exporters would be affected, such as oil and gas, semiconductors, and auto parts.

ILA members’ six-year contract is up this year and there has yet to be an agreement on a new one. Union members are currently paid $39 an hour, which is up 11% from the start of their previous six-year contract, but with inflation up 24%, those wages

have not kept pace.

Members also want a $5 an hour raise in each year of their next six-year contract; USMX is offering annual raises of half that: $2.50 an hour.

“USMX brought on this strike when they decided to hold firm to foreign-owned ocean carriers earning billion-dollar profits at United States ports, but not compensate the American ILA longshore workers who perform the labor that brings them their wealth,” said ILA President Harold Daggett.

This is the union’s first strike since 1977 and could affect 50% of the shipping in the United States. It comes at a precarious

time—just after a large percentage of the U.S. southeast suffered devastating damages after Hurricane Helene made landfall, affecting communities from Florida through Virginia. Many of those communities have an urgent need for goods and products, and not having access to them could endanger people’s lives.

The Conference Board, a business group, has said the strike could cost the U.S. economy about $4 billion a week in lost economic activity. Still, many large retailers anticipated the strike and have stocked up on inventory for the holiday season.

The bigger issue affecting this strike

is automation: The ILA is one of the few unions with actual power: They have a monopoly on off-loading containers at ports around the country. However, their jobs and pay are targets of automation. ILA members run the giant cranes that move containers from ship to truck or truck to ship. They sit 100 feet above the docks and peer through a window at their feet to position cranes for pickup. Their jobs could easily be automated, whether by robotics on site or at a remote location with a joystick and a computer console. Other efforts to automate dockworker jobs include using self-driving trucks, trains, and container tracking tools. The longshoremen’s strike is still about increasing wages, but it is also about preventing job losses due to automation and slowing down automation.

The Biden administration said it is closely monitoring the strike and its potential supply chain impacts. It has urged both sides to return to the table and negotiate “in good faith—fairly and quickly.”

In a statement, the White House said, “On Monday, at the president’s direction, Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard convened USMX board members and urged them to resolve this in a way that accounts for the success of these companies in recent years and the invaluable contributions of ILA workers. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, and…Lael Brainard have been in direct contact with both USMX and the ILA on the president’s behalf to keep the negotiations moving forward....The president and vice president believe collective bargaining is the best way for both American workers and employers to come to a fair agreement.”

Striking members of Local 1814 demonstrate in front of Red Hook container terminal (Damaso Reyes photos)

1814 Local member Aaron Frazier has worked at Red Hook terminal for four years. He said he’s on strike because of the unfair contract his union was offered

Tulane Jones (left) has worked at Red Hook terminal for 4.5 years

We recharge your e-bike, you refuel the city.

Con Edison is helping to bring hundreds of outdoor charging stations into the communities that need them most so e-bikers can safely recharge their batteries.

That’s energy for every day.

Happy birthday, Rev.

On October 3, the Rev. Al Sharpton will complete 70 orbits around the sun, and with each circle, he gains recognition as a voice for the Black community. While most of his popularity has come as a result of his comforting the aggrieved and afflicting the comfortable, his exposure on MSNBC as a commentator and his own show take him beyond the church and into the living rooms of America.

Hardly any incident of importance to Black America escapes Sharpton’s attention. He is a first- call pastor to deliver a eulogy for a noted African American, particularly if the person is in any way connected to the Civil Rights Movement or was a victim of police misconduct.

“Well, Rev. Sharpton, what do you think about this or the other?” is one of his favorite leads for discussing a critical social or political issue, as if being questioned by a man or woman in the street, so it comes as no surprise that the nation is watching to see his response to the predicament of his longtime friend, New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

The two did not come together on Monday evening for the reverend’s birthday salute at Columbus Circle — not that anyone expected such a meeting, given the mayor’s indictment and calls for him to resign. When asked about the mayor’s absence, Sharpton said “he had a previous engagement, I’m told.”

Many of the notables at the event will probably be among those summoned for a session to determine how best to deal with the mayor’s situation. That body of thinkers will no doubt play a key role in Gov. Hochul’s reaction, and Sharpton will be the point man.

We have no idea how this political drama will end, and the only thing we can say with any certainty or without reservations is “Happy birthday, Al, and many more trips around the sun!”

The hidden costs of healthcare at New York-Presbyterian

By ARTHUR SCHWARTZ

As a labor union lawyer and general counsel to the Center for the Independence of the Disabled, NY, representing thousands of hardworking New Yorkers, abled and disabled, I stand alongside many others who are deeply concerned about the state of healthcare in our city.

The rising cost of living squeezes families, yet one of the biggest drivers of this crisis is not often talked about: sky-high healthcare costs, particularly at institutions like New York-Presbyterian Hospital. This hospital, which operates under a “not-for-profit” status, has become the most expensive health system in New York while maintaining doubledigit profit margins but deteriorating service. This situation is not just unsustainable; it’s unconscionable.

Americans already spend more on healthcare than people in other developed countries, but New Yorkers pay even more.

According to the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute, per-person spending on healthcare services in New York was 20% above the national median in 2020. This is a staggering

figure, and it’s no coincidence that New York-Presbyterian is at the center of it. A 2022 report by the 32BJ Health Fund found that hospital charges were the leading driver of soaring health costs for its members, with New YorkPresbyterian charging, on average, 358% more than Medicare rates for equivalent services.

All of us—political leaders, unions, and civil rights organizations—have a responsibility to advocate for better pricing transparency, lower patient-toprofessional ratios, fair healthcare charges, less crowded emergency rooms, shorter waits for admission in those emergency rooms, and more equitable redistribution of profits to benefit the community, perhaps even aid to failing institutions like Beth Israel and St. Luke’s Hospitals. If we fail to act, we risk undermining our core mission of what is supposed to be the goal of our regulated healthcare system: the highest-quality healthcare at an affordable price.

Let’s be clear: New York-Presbyterian’s profit margins are not just healthy—they’re astronomical. In 2021, the hospital reported the largest profit windfall ever for a New York hospital, totaling roughly $1.5 billion with an operating profit margin of 17.4%, which is 65% higher than the national average. This trend has continued into 2024, with the

hospital reporting an operating income of $112.5 million in the first quarter alone, a significant increase from the previous year. It is even more troubling that New York-Presbyterian reaps huge tax benefits due to its nonprofit status. It received more than $415 million in tax breaks in 2021, yet allocated a mere 1.7% of its revenues to charity care and spent only $142 million on community benefits— a roughly $247 million gap. This raises serious questions about the hospital’s commitment to the community it serves rather than to its executives and their seven-figure salaries.

Moreover, the exorbitant charges at New York-Presbyterian cannot be justified by quality. While the hospital claims to be a premium provider, publicly available data paints a different picture. Their flagship hospital on the Upper East Side earned a “C” grade for quality, with patients at higher-than-average risk of having dangerous objects left in their bodies after surgery, experiencing serious breathing problems during surgery, or even just developing bed sores from lack of basic attention. (My own 102-year-old mother experienced this poor treatment, topped off by having an ambulance drop her off in her unattended apartment rather than the rehab nursing home they were supposed to take her to.)

This, coupled with concerns about staffing levels and working conditions flagged by unions led by the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), should alarm everyone.

As healthcare costs continue to rise, the burden falls squarely on the shoulders of New York’s workers and consumers, exacerbating the cost-of-living crisis in our city. Half of working-age households in New York City do not make enough money to cover basic needs, yet they are being asked to shoulder the financial burden of a hospital system that prioritizes profits and high executive salaries over people.

It’s time for our elected leaders to demand accountability from New York-Presbyterian and respond to the rising demands of unions and the affected communities. We need transparency, fair pricing, and a commitment to reinvest profits into the community, not corporate coffers and executive pockets. Only then can we ensure that healthcare in New York is accessible, affordable, and of the highest quality for all.

Arthur Schwartz is the general counsel of the Center for the Independence of the Disabled, NY, and counsel to numerous unions, including Transport Workers Union Local 100 and the Amazon Labor Union.

Elinor R. Tatum: Publisher and Editor in Chief

Damaso Reyes: Executive & Investigative Editor

Kristin Fayne-Mulroy: Managing Editor

Foley: News Editor

NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, 68th street facade (Kenneth C. Zirkel photo)

We can kumbaya around climate change

By JUNE MOSES

I am always thinking about housing, especially preservation and protection for those of us in low-income housing. As many in the housing advocacy space know, amplifying the voices and concerns of those with less is often seen as if we are standing in opposition and saying, “No to advancement,” which is not the case. There are points where residents and landlords can come together.

New York City’s Local Law 97 (LL97) represents a crucial opportunity for low-income housing residents, property owners, and developers to collaborate on improving the city’s environmental health while addressing long-standing issues like building repairs and energy inefficiency.

LL97 is part of New York City’s ambitious Climate Mobilization Act. It sets strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from large buildings and mandates substantial energy efficiency improvements. Importantly, with thoughtful implementation and collaboration, LL97 has the potential to achieve climate goals and uplift the quality of life for low-income residents. These residents are typically disproportionately affected by climate change and environmental injustices.

Low-income residents are vulnerable to extreme heat and other drastic weather due to aging infrastructure: leaky roofs, insufficiently insulated windows, poor ventilation, and inefficient heating and cooling systems. These conditions exacerbate the impacts of climate change.

These residents also have limited access to green spaces. According to New York City’s Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI), a tool created by the NY State Department of Health that measures how vulnerable a community is to the negative health effects of extreme heat, mapping the results out by community shows that the consequences are severe. Results are adverse health effects such as respiratory and cardiovascular issues, increased hospitalizations, and even increased energy costs. Most marginalized residents lack adequate resources to cope with rising temperatures.

Addressing these issues is an urgent matter of climate justice. LL97 offers a pathway to correct some of these deficiencies. For many owners, especially those managing low-income or

rent-stabilized properties, the cost of retrofitting buildings to meet LL97 requirements is a major concern. However, low-income residents have a vested interest in ensuring that their homes are energy-efficient, well-maintained, and environmentally sustainable. Engaging them in the process will unlock a powerful coalition of residents and owners working toward a shared goal. While the cost of LL97 compliance is substantial, there are various funding streams at the federal, state, and local levels of government that can help alleviate the burden. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed at the federal level, includes billions of dollars in incentives and grants for energy-efficiency improvements in residential buildings. New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) allocates funding for green building upgrades, particularly in disenfranchised communities. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) also offers grants and low-interest loans for energy upgrades. New York City offers several programs to assist property owners in achieving compliance with LL97, such as funding via the GreenHOUSE Fund and other resources found on the NYC Accelerator that provide expert guidance to help owners make energy-efficiency improvements.

These government-supported funding streams and programs make it easier

Last Quarter

Can you believe we are in the last quarter of 2024? It seems like only yesterday I was ringing in the new year with new friends in my neighborhood. As I reflect on all the things I have done in this swift year, I am reminded that there is still so much I want (and need) to do before the year comes to a close.

for building owners and developers to afford the necessary improvements.

LL97’s potential as a catalyst for change in low-income housing is significant. However, there is a critical missing link: outreach to and meaningful conversations with residents. City agencies, building owners, developers, and grassroots environmental organizations must make a concerted effort to involve and engage residents in discussions about LL97 compliance. If these communities are included from the outset, the process of implementing energy-efficient upgrades will go much more smoothly.

This innovative approach will foster less resistance and more collaboration to meet LL97’s ambitious goals; address long-neglected repairs; and create more resilient, energy-efficient buildings. With greater outreach and collaboration, Local Law 97 will improve the lives of all New Yorkers, particularly those in the city’s most vulnerable communities, while helping the city take a crucial step toward combating climate change.

June Moses is a housing advocate who has called Harlem home for more than 30 years. Her history of community involvement includes serving as a tenant association president, where she championed tenants’ rights and worked to improve housing conditions. Currently, Moses co-hosts the radio show “Ask Geraldine” on WHCR 90.3 FM, which airs Mondays at 5 p.m. EST.

First things first, is making sure the HarrisWalz ticket is successful on November 5. Considering this presidential race is so close in so many crucial swing states, it is very plausible that we may not know who is declared the winner on election night. However, for the next few weeks, I am going to do whatever I can to make sure friends and family are registered, have a voting plan, and a contingency voting plan, as well as come up with talking points for undecided and apathetic voters.

Second, I am going to spend more time in nature. I must keep reminding myself to get outside more, even as the weather gets more rainy and colder. I went birding the other week with my “birding bestie” and I could literally feel more blood pressure coming down as I looked at the various cardinals and wrens fluttering around. Also, just walking around meandering and talking with a good friend is so good for my health. I must make time to do it more often.

Third, as the year winds down and I try not to become consumed with local and national politics, I am going to

continue to support the arts and sports teams in New York. The New York Knicks season is beginning and I am quite excited to experience the collective joy that the team brings to the city. I am also going to see a few good shows in the upcoming weeks. “Good Bones” is playing at The Public Theater and “Bad Kreyòl” is showing at the Signature. I am so sure I’ll have thoughts on those two shows that I will write about in a later column. I am really trying to run through the tape with the remaining months in 2024. It’s been a wild year with so many twists and turns. When I look at my yearly bingo card, I did not have Biden stepping aside and elevating Kamala Harris or Diddy sitting in a Brooklyn detention center indefinitely. And if history follows its normal pattern, the last quarter of the year is often filled with surprises. Who knows what is in store in our political or entertainment world, but hopefully you are making a plan to maximize these remaining months in 2024. Are there any good books on your reading list? Is there something you’ve been wanting to try? Is there someone you need to speak to (or delete) before the new year rolls around? Whatever it is, you’ve got this last quarter to make it happen.

Christina Greer, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Fordham University; author of “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream”; and co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC.

CHRISTINA GREER, PH.D.

June Moses

Compensation

people seek victim’s compensation. Applicants also seek relief from domestic violence, sexual abuse, homicide, and assault, which are among the most common reasons.

Peele said therapy is among the most pressing needs that come up for gun violence survivors. Centers like Pathways offer a safe place for victims and survivors to come and start the process. Peele said the program can reach people who would otherwise be intimidated by pursuing compensation.

“People [who] come into these situations are kind of scared of dealing with governmental affairs, for many reasons,” he said. “But I think one thing they should know: that these phones and resources are not only a gift but more so, required by law to help them through that situation.”

According to NY State Senator Jabari Brisport, who was also in attendance, “Violence is one of the most disruptive things in our communities when it happens. And it’s always a ripple effect, right? It’s never just simply the one victim, but also their friends and families who are impacted.”

KAVI’s work plays a crucial role: “They deserve all the resources and all the funding that myself or the state can give because it truly is a life-saving operation that they’re doing here,” he said.

Improving victim compensation

This year marks 40 years since the passage of the Victims of Crimes Act (VOCA), the law that established victim compensation funds. In University of Michigan sociologist Jeremy Levine’s words, the law was “the tail end” of a two-decade fight to get a federal subsidy for victim compensation. When the concept of financially supporting crime survivors came over from the U.K. in the 1960s, the idea was that the government’s shortcomings in protecting its citizens from the conditions that exacerbate violence made it the collective responsibility of the government to address.

Unlike some legislation that uses tax dollars to help combat the problem, though, the dollars that support victims of violent crime go up and down every year, depending on the fines and fees collected from the prosecution of crime, white-collar crime in particular. In other words, the amount of funding to support crime victims across the country depends on more crime taking place.

“Victims of crime, in the current way that the funding apparatus works, need corporations to do bad things,” Levine said. “It needs people to be convicted of crime at misdemeanor level, at felony level, at the corporate white collar level. That’s how it’s set up. I don’t think that’s right. I think the incentives are perverse. I think it incentivizes more crime, which makes, to me, really contradictory aims.”

This model for funding crime survivors

operates in contrast from how other nations, particularly in Europe, fund victim compensation. Programs in countries like the U.K., Sweden, and France are supported by public funds. While the idea that those incriminated should be fined to provide restitution made sense to some at the time, the math hasn’t added up to enough to properly fund victim compensation. Attempts to change the fining model over the years to boost available funds haven’t worked, Levine said.

Funding for victim’s compensation has been dwindling federally, to nearly $3.3 billion in 2024, down 75% from its peak of $13 billion in 2017. Not many know about the program or apply: During the 2023 fiscal year, only 8,994 New Yorkers applied for victim compensation and 5,467 were approved, with payments at just over $18 million to those New York residents. For context, in the same fiscal year, the NYPD nearly doubled its overtime budget of $370 million, according to the comptroller’s office, projecting that they’d spend

are able to cover the costs that follow their victimization. Without financial support, survivors are often left with devastating results, such as losing their jobs, substance use, developing an over-reliance on emergency rooms to manage pain and suffering, and even cycling through jail and prison.

Supporting and stabilizing crime survivors can reduce the costs of violence and even prevent gun violence, reducing its burden on society and state and local governments.

The state recently passed the Fair Access to Victim Compensation bill, a law removing the requirement for a police report to get compensation, although it will not be enacted until December 2025. “The main crux is that it would remove the police report requirement, and it would expand the types of evidence that survivors can use to show the Office of Victim Services that a crime has occurred,” said Tahirih Anthony, senior policy manager at Common Justice, an advocacy organization that campaigned for the bill. “This could be a victim service provider. This could be a licensed medical and mental health provider.”

The act also changes the amount of time for a survivor to file a claim from one year to three years, Anthony said, which opens the opportunity for people like Peggy Herrera to file a claim for her son’s death. This extended time range is important for victims.

“Through working with survivors, you realize that healing just isn’t linear. Everyone isn’t ready to start doing paperwork when they’re going through some of their darkest days,” Anthony said.

Despite the reforms to application requirements, people can still be barred from receiving victim compensation if they are deemed to have contributed to their crime, in a stipulation in the state law known as contributory conduct.

more than $700 million. The difference in spending is estimated to be 20 times what the state spent on victim compensation.

A recent poll by the Alliance for Safety and Justice estimated that 96% of crime survivors nationwide don’t get victim compensation. What’s more, the application processing is plagued by racial bias: Reporting from the AP found that nationally, Black applicants make up less than half of compensation applications but 63% of denials, according to an Alliance investigation of 23 states. Denial rates for Black applicants tended to be for “subjective” rather than “administrative” reasons.

While New York’s denial rates for white and Black residents aren’t far apart, steps like requiring a police report within a week of the crime are hurdles that keep many Black New Yorkers from proceeding.

The trajectory for crime survivors changes dramatically when financial support is available. Survivors are less likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions when they

“If you’re a victim of crime and the police officer who takes the report says that they think that you were a rival gang member and that’s why it happened, or says they think that you started it, your compensation application can be fully denied, or vastly reduced, just based on that allegation,” said Danielle Sered, executive director of Common Justice.

OVS spokesperson Kava said that reducing or denying claims due to contributory conduct has been a rare occurrence in the past six years. Between 2018 and 2023, she said, 222 claims have been reduced and 19 claims have been denied due to contributory conduct, out of a total of 55,511 claims filed.

“OVS reviews all claims in the light most favorable to the individual filing the claim, Kava said. “The agency makes all decisions, including conduct contributing determinations, solely on the actions or conduct of individuals at the time of the crime for which the claim is filed,” Kava wrote in an email. But Sered criticized the philosophy behind denying aid to those deemed responsible for their injuries, especially because many perpetrators of harm have been exposed to harm themselves.

Portrait of Gwenolyn Halsey, mother and member of Not Another Child. Some of the vests worn by Halsey and others include pictures of their children and numbers often symbolizing birthdays and death days. (Photos by Damaso Reyes)

Survivor pin on Monica Cassaberry’s vest.

Compensation

Continued from page 14

“It reflects a broader belief that we think there are some people who don’t deserve care; where, even if they’re hurt, their pain doesn’t matter to us. It’s not important to us anymore,” she said.

Common Justice is working on legislation to remove the contributory conduct stipulation and increase access to the program, having successfully campaigned for a state law that eliminates the requirement that applicants report their crime to police. But Sered said that in an ideal world, gun violence survivors wouldn’t need to rely on victim compensation to support themselves financially.

Creating supportive circles

Peggy, Gwen, Janifer, and Monica recently met in Peggy’s yard. Some of them wore black vests with pictures of their children and white printed numbers: birthdays, death days. They are part of Not Another Child, a support organization founded by Oresa Napper-Williams that provides a support system for survivors of gun violence. They know from experience exactly what their peers need, from help with funeral arrangements, memorial services, and crime victims compensation applications to peer support sessions and retreats.

“She gives me the strength to be a better me every day,” Cassaberry said of Napper-Williams.

Reflecting on the needs that go unmet for survivors, Napper-Williams said, “The priority should be to get us the funding to do the work.”

Not Another Child, Napper-Williams, and

the organization’s work to meet survivor needs has gotten the attention of the White House on the importance of communitybased victim support organizations.

Napper-Williams envisions Not Another Child offering temporary housing to immediately relocate survivors of violence, but building support systems for survivors is difficult with the delays in getting the public funds they are allocated, like the $35,000 and $25,000 discretionary pay from the city that she received months after their completed contract. She feels that organizations like hers are better suited to meet the needs of victims than government.

“NYPD gets their money upfront. We do the work on a reimbursable contract most of the time.”

These women know that support that’s sensitive to survivor needs, such as check-

ins, funds to support their children in the short term, aid with housing and relocation, is what many others need to to get to healing.

“I tell people, it took pain to heal pain for my own life,” Herrera said. “I just want, when someone goes through that, they can heal from their pain, but that it wouldn’t keep them stuck… they will go out and help somebody heal from their pain.”

Blacklight Investigative Reporter Shannon Chaffers contributed to reporting this story.

Members of Not Another Child in Washington, D.C., on September 25, 2024, when President Biden signed

make guns more lethal. (Photo courtesy of Janifer Taylor)

Caribbean Update

Caribbean nations fail to overturn ban on whaling

By BERT WILKINSON Special to the AmNews

An effort by a few Caribbean Community countries to lift a decades-old ban on the commercial hunting of whales failed at last week’s International Whaling Commission conference in Peru but the states have pledged to redouble their efforts by the time the next summit rolls around in two years.

For example, the Eastern Caribbean nation of Antigua had made an effort to declare commercial whaling as “a source of food security” but once attending delegates realized that the idea was not gaining any traction, the proposal was withdrawn. The majority of delegates had instead supported the idea to maintain the current moratorium on commercial hunting which has been in place since the mid-1980s. Local environmental groups say authorities have done the correct thing. Whaling, to many of the Eastern Ca -

ribbean nations, is important for tourism, sightseeing, and cultural purposes. For example, St. Vincent and its federation island in the Grenadines, is given different consideration by the IWC, as just one of a few nations around the world with special permission to hunt a limited number of whales to support local indigenous and aboriginal populations. The whales are used for food, healing oils, and medical purposes, officials say.

The draft resolution on food security had been submitted by Guinea, Cambodia, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Ghana, Senegal and St. Kitts, collaborating with Japan and its relentless efforts to end the moratorium.

Meanwhile, local environmental groups in Antigua have offered congratulations to the administration of Prime Minister Gaston Browne for withdrawing the move to end the whaling ban under the guise of food security, contending that whales need to be protect -

What Christianity?

In a recent “Frontline” documentary aired on PBS on Sept. 24, examining the rise of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, it was revealed that the scandal-plagued, thricedivorced Christian televangelist Paula White-Cain played a pivotal role in endorsing Trump to evangelical voters during his first presidential run. White-Cain later became Trump’s spiritual adviser during his presidency.

White evangelical Christians have long been a core voting bloc for Republicans, particularly supporting culturally conservative policies such as opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. According to the latest Pew Research Center survey, conducted between Aug. 26 and Sept. 2, 2024, a

majority of white registered voters in three key religious groups — Evangelicals, Catholics, and Protestants — indicated that they would vote for or lean toward Trump if the election was held today.

So why do so-called white Christians fervently support a man whose platform peddles in lies, hate, scandal, violence and fraud?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Christianity as “the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies.” The central tenets that Jesus taught include love for God and love for one’s neighbor as one’s self.

So, who do Trump-supporting white Christians consider their neighbors? Are their neighbors only other white Christians like Trump, who were “born in America?”

It seems so, given how quickly they accept the lies and xenophobia propagated by Trump, his running mate JD Vance, and

ed and conserved.

At least six such groups had written to Browne demanding that Antigua withdraw the resolution. “Whales are essential for the health and productivity of the marine ecosystems, playing a vital role in nutrient cycling and supporting a rich diversity of marine life,” they said in the missive to the PM.

“Their feeding habits stimulate phytoplankton growth, the foundation of the marine food web, ensuring health and productivity in marine ecosystems. It is heartwarming to see something positive happen regarding the protection of the marine environment with all the negative things around us. Anything that can be done to protect the marine environment is a win-win. It has been awesome to see how many Antiguans have taken a stand against this pro whaling stand,” the groups stated.

They also pointed out what they termed a contradiction between Antigua’s marine conservation stance at this

year’s Small Island Developing States conference held in Antigua, and its position in Peru, noting that “it could also negatively impact Antigua and Barbuda’s tourism sector and international investment, as we continue to promote our country as an ‘eco-conscious’ destination.”

Local media quoted Martha WatkinsGilkes, of the Antigua Barbuda Independent Tourism Promotion Corporation (ABITPC) as saying that Antigua’s efforts to end the hunting ban made no real sense.

“As a concerned citizen and environmentalist, I must ask, what benefit does the average Antiguan gain from our country supporting the slaughter of whales and being labeled as a pro-whaling nation? The meat is hardly consumed in the federation with Nevis. “Whales are essential for the health and productivity of marine ecosystems. They play a vital role in nutrient cycling and supporting rich biodiverse marine life.”

their supporters.

Haitians, as well as many immigrants from Latin America, are predominantly Christians — many of them Catholic. So why do white Christians support a man who sows hatred toward fellow Christians? Is it simply acceptable to ignore this because these Christians are non-white and therefore not considered “neighbors?”

What true Christian can stand by and support a liar, a felon, an adulterer, a xenophobe, a racist and a misogynist?

What Christian can stand by as Trump continues to spread falsehoods like “they’re poisoning the blood” and the absurd accusation that Christian Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs or are coming from asylums and prisons to kill Americans.

Can a Christian conscience cheer for “Send them back!” as Trump made more baseless claims about immigrants in Penn sylvania last week and once again recycled the debunked conspiracy theory about Hai tian immigrants consuming pets in Spring

field, Ohio?

The Bible, which Christians revere as their Holy Book, contains more than 22 scriptures that command love for immigrants and foreigners. Leviticus 19:34 clearly states: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

Yet, these so-called Christian Trump supporters continue to applaud when he says things like: “Do you think Springfield will ever be the same? I don’t think so. The fact is, and I’ll say it now, you have to get them the hell out. You have to get them out, I’m sorry.”

Christians? I think not!

Felicia J. Persaud is the publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com, a daily news outlet focused on positive news about Black immigrant communities from the Caribbean

International News

U.N.’s 2024 speeches touch on Palestine, reparations, climate change, and representation

By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff

Important speeches at this year’s 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 79) included calls for permanent African representation on the United Nations Security Council, a ceasefire in Palestine, the push to address the ongoing effects of climate change, and continued calls for reparations for African slavery.

“We will not be silent—ever,” said Valdrack Ludwing Jaentschke Whitaker, Nicaragua’s minister for foreign affairs. “We denounce and condemn the genocide that the government of Israel and its ‘First World’ allies have committed, commit, and continue to commit against the glorious people of Palestine, against the courageous people of Lebanon, and against so many other brave, valiant, dignified people.”

“The world needs to look itself in the face, without complacency,” said Senegal’s President Bassírou Diomaye Faye. “The values we have sworn to defend are being trampled underfoot in so many regions of the globe. Whether we are in Gaza, Tel Aviv, Dakar, or elsewhere, every human being is the bearer of equal dignity, a dignity that transcends borders, cultures, and religious affiliations. We must ensure that this dignity is respected [and] protected for every being, without exception. This duty is the very essence of the United Nations.”

Addressing “ladies and gentlemen presidents of the world,” Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro said, “In this room, a president’s ability to communicate depends on the amount of dollars he or she has in the budget; in the number of warplanes they have; and ultimately, in the capacity of their country to destroy humanity. The power of a country in the world is no longer exercised by the type of economic or political system or ideas it conveys, but by the power to destroy the life of mankind.

“Those of us who do not have that power of destruction, on the contrary, those of

us who have the power to sustain life on the planet, speak without much attention being paid and often perhaps only to our own people. That is why we are not listened to when we vote to stop the genocide in Gaza. Even though we are the majority of the presidents of the world and represent the majority of humanity, we are not listened to by a minority of presidents who can stop the bombing. In other words, we are not being listened to by the presidents of the countries that can destroy humanity.”

Various remarks touched on the need for the U.N. Security Council to have a representative from Africa. The Security Council has 15 members, five of which––the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom––are permanent members, while the other 10 non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly to serve for two-year terms.

The continent of Africa has 54 countries, yet is still not represented on the Security Council. The United States has said it is willing to support two permanent seats

for African countries. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni had his prime minister, Robinah Nabbanja, emphasize the importance of having African countries join as permanent members of the Security Council, with veto powers.

With 2025 set to mark the 80th anniversary of the United Nations’ founding, Gabriel Boric Font, president of Chile, said that when the UN celebrates that milestone, it needs to do so with a Security Council that “includes Brazil, India, and at least one country from Africa, among others.”

“Forgotten conflicts in Sudan and Yemen are causing atrocious suffering to almost 30 million people,” said Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He also spoke about continuing failures to address climate change: “It is impossible to ‘deplanetize’ our life in common,” Lula said. “We are condemned [by] the interdependence of climate change. The planet no longer waits to hold the next generation accountable and is tired of unfulfilled climate agreements. It is weary of neglected carbon emission reduction targets and of financial

aid to poor countries that never arrives. Denialism is succumbing to the evidence of global warming.”

The world needs a “reset,” Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley told the UNGA, and the Security Council is one of many things that need to be reformed: “It is time for a global reset,” Mottley said. “This reset must see the end of all forms of discrimination. It must dismantle the rules and institutions that create these divides, restoring faith in the international community by fostering transparency, inclusion, and fairness. We cannot afford to perpetuate the colonial legacy, where some nations control the fate of others while ignoring their legitimate aspirations for development, justice, and equality.

“This is why the Caribbean Community, and indeed my own country, Barbados, join the growing call for reparations for slavery and colonialism. The scars of these historical injustices run deep. They are not merely a distant memory, but an ongoing reality for descendants of African people across the globe. Reparations are not simply about financial compensation. They are about justice, recognition, and development. The debt incurred by Britain for compensating slave owners was repaid in this century, almost 200 years later. This is a stark reminder that the burden of history does not fade with time. Therefore, the solution to reparations must be multigenerational and grounded in development.

“As the United Nations Decade for People of African Descent comes to a close, we must acknowledge that while progress has been made, the recognition, justice, and development promised by this decade have not yet been fully realized. It is imperative that we proclaim a second decade to continue the unfinished work. We owe it to future generations to right these wrongs, to address the profound impact of slavery and colonialism, and to begin the long-overdue journey toward healing and restoration.”

Curaçao fights for African diaspora recognition

By JESÚS CHUCHO GARCIA

Special to the AmNews

Translated by KAREN JUANITA

CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff

The African presence on the island of Curaçao is not as well-known as on other Caribbean islands, like Cuba or Haiti, but Curaçao, first conquered by

the Portuguese and later by Holland, has a beautiful history, culture, and language—a mixture of Africans, Indigenous peoples, and Europeans.

The Tula Museum’s Professor Jeanne Henriquez, an activist for African and women’s rights, answered some questions about Black life in Curaçao with the support of local activist Andrews Seraus.

Culture, language, and traditions

Curaçao has 185,483 residents, and the language of most of the people is Creole, but Curaçao is also known as a multilingual nation where people also communicate in Dutch, English, and Spanish.

The culture of the island, said Henriquez, is diverse. At the same time, we have resisted and been able to preserve our ancestral African culture. We have

the Kiminá, a multidisciplinary theatrical work that includes music, song, and dance. Our food is varied due to the historical ties of international trade; our local gastronomy is based on seafood, meat, and chicken with a base of Creole seasoning with garlic, onion, green pepper, and tomato per ǰ il or local cilantro. Religion is

Senegal’s President Bassírou Diomaye Faye

Arts & Entertainment

October 2024 Dance Calendar

By CHARMAINE PATRICIA WARREN Special to the AmNews

The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC), at the Joyce from October 1–6, kicks off this month’s calendar. Recognized for “championing a movement legacy rooted in the African American experience,” the company has two works by Black choreographic voices on a triple bill. Ray Mercer’s “This I Know for Sure” captures the spirit of creation between choreographer and dancers, while Rennie Harris’s “Jacob’s Ladder” pays homage to painter Jacob Lawrence and his portrayals of Black life in America. The third work is a restaging of Paul Taylor’s “Esplanade” and positions DCDC as the first African American dance company to add this 1975 iconic work to its repertoire. “Part of the beauty of dance is it’s held in the vessel of the dancers,” said Chief Executive & Artistic Director Debbie Blunden-Diggs. “For me, it broadens the scope of who DCDC is as a repertory African American dance company.”

For more information, visit https://www.joyce.org

Also this month

October 6: Stop by the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) Open House for a fun-filled day featuring free dance classes for all ages and levels, including ballet, African, Salsa, and Jazzercise. Enjoy special highlights such as a Ballet Master Class led by DTH School Director Tai Jimenez, studio tours, and a presentation by the DTH Company. With face painting, crafts, and snacks, there’s something for everyone to enjoy as DTH celebrates its vibrant legacy.

For more information or to RSVP, visit www.dancetheatreofharlem.org.

October 9–13: The Joyce presents the U.S. debut of Botis Seva and his company Far From The Norm in an evening-length, multimedia, hip hop dance theater work, “BLKDOG,” “that reveals the fine line between self-discovery and self-destruction,” according to the release.

For more information, visit https://www.joyce.org.

October 10–12: At Danspace Project, Niall Jones will present a new work, titled “JohnsonJaxxxonJefferson,” described as “…a site breach, a collapsing of mem-

ories, sensations, and bodily coordinates—a dance and its noises, moving from one place to another operating, in parts, as a system of continuous retrieval.”

For more information, visit https://danspaceproject.org.

October 20: As part of CPR’s OPEN-AiR program, Ariana Speight, a 2024 Artist-in-Residence,

will present “cocoon,” a work in development that “…journeys through metamorphosis defined as a transformative transition and is a continual introduction to the inner workings of self through the shifting of form,” according to the release.

For more information, visit www.cprnyc.org.

October 22: As part of the OPEN AiR series at CPR, the 2024 Artists-in-Residence Rebecca Patek, Alex Rodabaugh, and Anh Vo offer “Endless Holes,” a shared evening of new work.

For more information, visit www.cprnyc.org.

October 23–27: Former Ballet Nacional de España principal dancer Sergio Bernal and his company bring their first evening-length work, “A Night with Sergio Bernal,” to the Joyce.

For more information, visit https://www.joyce.org.

October 25: From South America, the all-male Argentinian dancing-and-drumming troupe MALEVO, under choreographer/ dancer Matias Jaime, makes its NJPAC debut with a combination of Malambo (the traditional folk dance of Argentine Gauchos), flamenco, and synchronized percussion.

For more information, visit https://www.njpac.org/event/ malevo/.

October 25: As part of the OPEN LAB series at CPR, Yanira Castro continues the aural archiving project “a canary torsi’s multisite, multi-format” public art project “Exorcism = Liberation,” in conjunction with an installation, on view through November 6.

For more information, visit www. cprnyc.org.

October 30–November 2: After 30 years, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company returns to BAM’s Next Wave with “Still/Here,” the controversial 1994 multimedia dance theater work. Created during the AIDS epidemic, one of the most contentious and terrifying periods of U.S. history, “Still/ Here” breaks boundaries between the personal and the political, exemplifying a form of dance theater that is uniquely American.

For more information, visit https://www.bam.org.

DCDC dancers Da’Rius Malone, Elizabeth Ramsey, Sadale Warner, Quentin ApolloVaughn Sledge, Qarrianne Blayr, Robert Pulido, Countess V Winfrey, Alexandria Flewellenm Devin Baker, and Aaron Frisby (Ben Jackson photo)

DCDC dancers Robert Pulido, Sadale Warner, Da’Rius Malone, Alexandria Flewellen, Quentin ApolloVaughn Sledge, Niarra Gooden-Clarke, and Thaliyah Cools-Lartigue in Paul Taylor’s “Esplanade” (Scott Robbins photo)

Beyoncé glitters in gold; Mary J. Blige's Lifetime movies continue; JALC celebrates Harry Belafonte

FLO ANTHONY GO WITH THE FLO

On Sept. 28, Beyoncé donned a sexy gold Gucci evening gown in a commercial for the joint venture of Möet Hennesy and her whiskey brand Sir Davis, according to The Daily Mail. The ad, in which Jay-Z also appears, was filmed during the real life launch party on Sept. 23, held at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris, France. Meanwhile, Beyoncé is also doing a global campaign with Levi’s Jeans featuring her song “Levii’s Jeans.” Said Beyoncé in a press release, “My song ‘Levii’s Jeans’ celebrates what I believe is the ultimate American uniform — something we all wear with pride.” Beyoncé’s 501 ‘90s jeans and essential sport t-shirt from the campaign video are available now.........

Mary J. Blige returns to Lifetime to executive produce several new original movies — the first of which is set to debut 2025 as part of the network’s latest Voices of a Lifetime movie slate. Inspired by the queen of hip-hop soul’s best-selling hit “Family Affair,” the film continues Kendra and Ben’s epic love story from Lifetime’s 2023 fan favorite movies “Mary J. Blige’s ‘Real Love’” and “Mary J. Blige’s ‘Strength of a Woman.’”

“Mary J. Blige’s ‘Family Affair’” has started production with Ajiona Alexus and Da’Vinchi from “BMF” returning to reprise their roles as Kendra and Ben in the third installment of their story........ Tongues are wagging that Sean “Diddy”

Combs has been removed from suicide watch at Brooklyn, New York’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center. Combs has also been visited by several of his family members in the past two weeks. Meanwhile, late model Kim Porter’s children have spoken out after a memoir said to be written by their mother surfaced online. Quincy, Christian, Jessie, and D’Lila issued a statement on Instagram to address the “many hurtful and false rumors” concerning the relationship of their parents and that rumors that Porter wrote a book prior to her death in 2018 are “simply untrue.” .........

On Oct. 25-26, Grammy-nominated vocalist and songwriter René Marie will lead “Jump in the Line! A Musical Celebration of Harry Belafonte” by paying homage to the late iconic Jamaicanborn calypsonian-actor-political activist who put his money and his life on the front line of the Civil Rights Movement’s struggles for racial integration during the 1950s and ‘60s. The event will take place in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room. During this two-night engagement at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ms. Marie will perform some of Belafonte’s best-known and beloved songs. Back in the ‘80s, Mr. Belafonte once told Yours Truly that all of his marching and protesting was worth it to see a young Black woman working at the New York Post. I felt so proud and honored.......

Artwork by Jon Key

WU TSAI THEATER DAVID GEFFEN HALL

THOMAS WILKINS SETH PARKER WOODS NATHALIE JOACHIM CARLOS SIMON

Harry Belafonte speaking at a National Action Network event honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 2017. (Bill Moore photo)

NYFF 2024: ‘Nickel Boys,’ ‘Blitz’ lead film fest’s standouts

By MAGRIRA

Special to the AmNews

I say it every year because it only becomes more true: one of the greatest perks of living in New York is the opportunity to attend the New York Film Festival (NYFF) at Lincoln Center, where some of the most innovative and exciting new films are screened. This year, a few exceptional titles have emerged, starting with the opening-night film “Nickel Boys,” an evocative, expressionistic adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Nickel Boys,” directed by RaMell Ross. Also standing out is “All We Imagine as Light,” the first narrative feature by documentarian Payal Kapadia, a gentle yet profoundly moving exploration of the lives of three women in Mumbai, India. Another noteworthy film is Mati Diop’s “Dahomey,” a sharp and timely documentary on the repatriation of African art. Meanwhile, renegade auteur Jacques Audiard brings “Emilia Pérez,” a fever dream set in Mexico following four remarkable women in pursuit of their own paths to happiness. Emilia, a fearsome cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón), enlists Rita (Zoe Saldaña), a lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help her fake her own death so that Emilia can finally live as her true self. Written and directed by the double Cannes-winning Audiard (“Rust and Bone,” “A Prophet”), the film also stars Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, and Edgar Ramírez. It’s a significant achievement to be selected for the NYFF’s main lineup or the Spotlight section, which consistently offers a rich mix of films from across the globe, often positioning emerging filmmakers alongside more established voices. This year’s most talked about films on critics’ lists include Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” and Wang Bing’s documentary trilogy about young people in China — “Youth (Hard Times)” and “Youth (Homecoming)” — which together span an impressive 378 minutes.

The 2025 Oscar race is already heating up, with early buzz surrounding “Blitz,” a World War II period piece directed by Steve McQueen. The film focuses on love and survival during the Nazi Blitz on London and takes a nuanced look at race, centering on a white mother (Saoirse Ronan) and her young Black son (Elliott Hef-

fernan) who are separated early on in the story.

Among this year’s 73 features, the documentary “No Other Land,” by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor, has captured attention. This

Palestinian-Israeli group of activists and filmmakers chronicles five years of life in Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank, where residents struggle to remain on their land despite relentless pressure

from the Israeli military, whose bulldozers raze homes and reduce them to rubble.

In a continued effort to make film accessible across the city, the NYFF has expanded screenings to all five boroughs, featuring a wider range of genres and films. For more on what the New York Film Festival has to offer, visit filmlinc.org and embark on a cinematic journey through time, place, and the world’s most exciting storytellers.

Zoe Saldaña in “Emilia Pérez” (Photos courtesy of NYFF)

Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson in “Nickel Boys”

AmNews Food

Talking SCHOP! Omakase Nights

Happy fall, y’all! We made it! I might be speaking for only a select few who are ready for the changing season; however, for me, it is more about getting back to a pace of life that moves me forward. I feel like I have been idle for too long, mentally and physically. It’s time to break out! And break out, I did!

Being invited to dine at a New York City restaurant is always a pleasure, and a privilege. When that invitation includes the word “omakase,” I vibrate higher. One, I love Asian food and, two, the word means, “I leave the details up to you.” As a chef and food writer, the most anxious part of dining out is the decision making that ensues over the menu. I want everything! With omakase, all I must do is arrive and sit. I can definitely do that. Last Friday night, I made my way to the Flatiron District for omakase at the latest location of the Scratch Restaurants Group, Sushi by Scratch Restaurants: New York. The restaurant lives beneath a nail salon. Before the OG New Yorker in me could say “oh, hell no,” to walking down graffiti-filled stairs to the subterranean level, I pressed the doorbell and was quickly greeted by the host. Once inside, the chaos of the city immediately left my spirit. Guests are asked to arrive thirty minutes before their seating to partake in appetizers and cocktails. Before I could sit in the dimly lit 10-guest lounge, I was asked about dietary restrictions, offered a hot towel to clean my hands, a Japanese whiskey cocktail, and an oyster uni sake shooter. I was then led to a candlelit cocktail table to wait for my guest and enjoy two more canapés to arrive by the chef. Once the dining hour struck, the door to the 10-seat counter opened and the guests were guided inside. Following the assigned seating, I took the pole position in the center in front of chef and co-owner Phillip Frankland Lee. After introducing his team of the beverage concierge and the two sushi chefs flanking him, Chef Lee led this dinner theater with aplomb!

From the chef’s foreword of what was to ensue — with the courses outlined on individual chalkboards behind him that graduated from light hamachi, squid, and jellyfish to wagyu, bone marrow, and foie gras, and the instruction on how to eat each course — the only decision left to be made was which beverage pairing to select. Since I could not decide, I went with the pairing that included sake, cocktails, and beer. What began with Chef Lee preparing

the warm sushi rice à la minute , ended two hours later with a not-too-sweet matcha surprise. To describe each bite in between here would be a disservice to an eventual experience you might have at Sushi by Scratch watching a chef chauffeur you through it. I left Sushi by Scratch with a full belly and a smile on my face knowing one

thing: I will now be having omakase every year for my birthday moving forward. Duomo arigato gozaimasu! I hope to return soon.

Happy eating and thanks for reading!

Kysha Harris is a chef, food writer and editor, culinary producer, consultant and owner of

vice in NYC for over 22 years. Follow her on Instagram, @SCHOPnyc and on Facebook, @SCHOPnyc.

Questions, comments, requests, feedback, invitations! Email us at AmNewsFOOD@SCHOPnyc.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @NYAmNewsFOOD.

SCHOP!, a personalized food ser-

1. Chef Lee meticulously prepares each bite. 2. A spot prawn appetizer in the cocktail lounge pre dinner. 3. The menu and fresh fish. 4. Each bite is presented before you. 5. Chef Lee prepares the sushi rice. 6. Sparkling sake is poured to overflow the cup for good hospitality. (Kysha Harris photos)

KYSHA HARRIS FOOD EDITOR, @SCHOPNYC

& ENTERTAINMENT

Melba Tolliver’s ‘Accidental Anchorwoman’ introduced at Word Up Bookstore

By RENEE MINUS WHITE Fashion & Beauty Editor

Melba Tolliver, the first African American woman to anchor network news on WABC-TV, Eyewitness News, and News 12 Long Island in 1967, is now an author. She recently introduced her autobiography, “The Accidental Anchorwoman” (July 2024, Rebel Bookseller, Book & Puppet Co.) at a series of book signing events at the Word Up Community Bookstore (2113 Amsterdam Avenue, NYC), and Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too (Columbus Avenue & W. 110th Street, NYC).

Tolliver, 85, was joyful as she described her life and experiences on the job. For 30 years on TV, she told other people’s stories. In 1973, when the New York Times dubbed her a “superstar reporter,” a publisher asked for her memoir. Now she’s telling her own story.

Tolliver’s book recounts major historical facts and events, including her presence at the March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr.

At her mother’s insistence, Tollier became a registered nurse/RN and worked at Bellevue Hospital before taking a position as a secretary at WABC-TV during a major network strike. When WABC-TV executives pulled her away from her typewriter and asked her to fill in to read the nightly news, she was shocked, to say the least, and nervous. “It’s important to be at the right place at the right time,” she recalled thinking. For this first, accidental anchor spot, Tolliver smiled as instructed. She was exceptional, and she enjoyed it.

And of course, people talked: “Did you see the Black woman reading the news?” The rest is history.

The Word Up book-signing event was very enjoyable, with lots of laughter—a beautiful, successful afternoon for the author. Among those in attendance in the Word Up Bookstore audience was Tolliver’s close childhood friend, Reverend Marcia Callende, who smiled when Tolliver revealed that she plays the flute.

In “Accidental Anchorwoman,” Tolliver writes about her child-

hood, growing up with her sister, experiencing a difficult marriage, and living through the fight for

racial equality for Black people in America. Her insistence on wearing her hair in a natural Afro

when covering the White House wedding of Tricia Nixon earned retaliation from WABC bosses. “I have a voice,” she penned; she discovered her voice while being a news reporter.

“Accidental Anchorwoman” is an enlightening read, especially in the current times. Tolliver has packed her book with telling details, and she fills in the backstory of a life that has deeply influenced modern journalism. Reporting with wit and humor from her ninth decade, she has provocative things to say about civil rights, the women’s movement, identity, and journalistic objectivity.

“Accidental Anchorwoman” is an absolute must-read! Young people can draw inspiration from Tolliver when battling mainstream society over issues such as personal image, gender, and race. Podcasters and journalists can learn from Tolliver to defy gatekeepers while celebrating local heroes.

For more info, visit www.melbatolliver.com.

New Black collections from Dionne Brand, Aaron Robertson

By JORDANNAH ELIZABETH

Special to the AmNews

Dionne Brand’s “Salvage: Readings from the Wreck” and Aaron Robertson’s “The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America” are out-of-the-box, Afro-inspired collections of esoteric and conscious visions of Black expression. These books will be enticing to readers who inhabit the subjective realm of free thought. It is important that we have diverse perspectives within our Black circles and communities, as we as a people have journeys that are singular, special, and supportive to the unification of our advancement as a people.

“Salvage: Readings from the Wreck” by Dionne Brand

Dionne Brand, an internationally acclaimed poet and novelist, uses her unique voice to navigate through the wreckage of empire, revealing the profound impact of colonialism on English and American writings to present a compelling exploration of literature, identity, and empire. “Salvage: Readings from the Wreck” blends autobiography with literary criticism to confront the imperialist

forces that have shaped cultural narratives and personal identities. Her analysis extends beyond critique and is not solely academic. Deeply personal, delving into how these narratives have constructed ideas of self and other, shaping what was deemed possible or impossible, Brand relates

her own experiences with these stories and the ways in which they have influenced her interpretation of her world. By engaging with these texts through an anti-colonial lens, Brand demonstrates how literature can both reflect and perpetuate the ideologies of empire.

The book stands out for its wit, insight, and depth. Brand’s work is an enlightening approach to utilizing reading and writing as tools for personal and political transformation, making “Salvage” an intriguing read for anyone interested in the intersections of literature, identity, and empire.

The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America

In “The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America,” Aaron Robertson delivers a lyrical meditation on the pursuit of utopia by Black Americans. This book is an evocative journey into how the disillusioned, marginalized and persecuted not only endure but strive to reshape their realities and expand their possibilities.

Robertson traverses a personal and historical path from his ancestral hometown of Promise Land, Tennessee to Detroit. This trajectory is not merely geographical

but symbolic, charting the evolution of Black utopian thought and practice. Detroit, in particular, serves as a crucial focal point for Robertson’s exploration, spotlighting one of the most significant Black utopian experiments in American history: the Shrine of the Black Madonna. Founded by the visionary preacher Albert Cleage Jr., the Shrine of the Black Madonna merged Afrocentric Christian practices with radical social projects. The Shrine’s efforts extended beyond spiritual empowerment; it fostered a range of initiatives including bookstores, co-ops and a self-defense force. Its members also embarked on creating the country’s largest Black-owned farm, aiming to establish a tangible paradise for Black people.

Robertson’s narrative weaves the story of the Shrine with other Black utopian visions from the Reconstruction era to the countercultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and into contemporary efforts. By reflecting on these diverse experiments and visions, Robertson underscores the persistent quest for spaces where Black dignity, protection, and flourishing are central.

Author and former anchorwoman Melba Tolliver at book-signing event at Word Up Community Bookstore. (Renee Minus White/A Time to Style photo)

‘Medea: Re-Versed’ is hip-hop meets Greek tragedy — and it is fire!

By LINDA ARMSTRONG

Special to the AmNews

“Medea: Re-Versed” is the creative, brilliant work of Luis Quintero, who actually wears three hats — as the playwright, chorus leader and emcee in his rap-filled version of the Greek tragedy adapted from Euripides. This play is presented by Red Bull Theater and Bedlam in co-production with Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. From the time that you are sitting in the intimate Frank Shiner Theatre at the Sheen Center located at 18 Bleecker Street, you know you’re in for a treat. The energy in the room was off the chain! Quintero was the emcee on the stage with Jacob Ming-Trent and Stephen Michael Spencer and he lets you know about the story and that this show calls for audience participation. And believe me, the audience was ready to be a part of the show!

You have never seen a Medea story like this. There is rap, singing and rhymes everywhere, along with a tremendous amount of pas-

sion, revenge, and fun. The raps that Quintero put together allow the characters involved to speak their truth in ways that makes the audience swoon with admiration and delight. Whether or not you know the story of Medea and the route she took to get revenge on King Creon and Jason, you will see it with new eyes from the depth and clarity of this meticulous script.

This play will have you gasping, laughing, cheering, and hollering. You need to see this play for so many reasons: It may give you a new perspective on the story, it will entertain you to the ultimate level, and it will set your soul on FIRE with the power of the script and the vibrant, stunning performances of this phenomenal cast. Sarin Monae West takes the character of Medea to a level that touches your soul. You feel her pain so vividly. You may actually find yourself feeling empathy. Ming-Trent is absolutely at his best as he masterfully performs the roles of Creon, Aegeus, and Messenger. I have never seen MingTrent not devour a role, and here he

takes on three very distinct characters and brings an A-game to each. This man has an energy, a talent and a theatrical gift that is always a great pleasure to experience. Spencer captivates as Jason. His character is so wrong and strong, he is ridiculous. Spencer allows the audience to witness the audacity of his character’s arrogance, but he also plays the role with humor.

This play runs for 80 minutes without an intermission and it is intensely performed from the first word to the last. You have to make it your business to see “Medea: ReVersed,” and you will definitely be thrilled that you did.

The production is co-conceived and directed by Nathan Winkelstein. There is a live band on stage that includes beatboxer Mark Martin (who is also the music director), guitar player Siena D’Addario, and bass player Melissa Mahoney. The production has scenic design by Emmie Finckel, costume design by Nicole Wee, lighting design by Cha See, and sound design by Matt Otto. For tickets, visit www.sheencenter.org.

‘Yellow Face’ shines a blinding light on race, white privilege

By LINDA ARMSTRONG Special to the AmNews

“Yellow Face” is rightly billed as a comedy, but this semi-autobiographical play about the life of Tony Award-winning Asian American playwright David Henry Hwang is much more than an entertaining evening at the theater. Playing at the Todd Haimes Theatre on W. 42nd Street, this Roundabout Theatre production looks at a problem in Broadway casting culture that goes back years: the issue of white actors being cast in Asian roles. As one of many examples, this occurred with “Miss Saigon” when it was on Broadway. The casting was protested by members of the Asian American community, including Hwang, who wrote a play called “Face Value,” an ill-fated production loosely based on this controversy.

“Yellow Face,” though, will have you mesmerized as the seven cast members deliver stupendous performances based around a story about an Asian American playwright who mistakenly casts a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play. Daniel Dae Kim is spectacular as David Henry Hwang. He plays this character with a great deal of passion, humor, and empathy. You see Hwang’s many layers,

and the real life problems that he faced in both his professional and personal life. He wasn’t afraid to stand up for what he thought was right, which created a lot of enemies for him, including at Actor’s Equity. He also found himself facing scrutiny from the New York Times. This play shares a part of his life that I don’t think most people know about. The other cast members play multiple roles and perform them with ease.

It is hilarious to watch Ryan Eggold as Marcus, a white actor

who gets cast in an Asian role and decides to buy into the hype that he is Asian. Francis Jue, an Asian American actor, is funny and captivating in the role of Hwang’s father, a banker who believed in the American Dream until that dream turned on him. Jue also gives a memorable performance as an Asian American scientist accused of being a spy. Every time he takes the stage in his multiple characters he is thrilling to behold. He brings a fresh, engaging energy to all his scenes. Greg Keller is poignant as a New York Times re-

porter targeting Hwang and his father. He also serves as one of the narrators to move the story along.

Throughout the play, the audience is introduced to various characters who interacted in Hwang’s life, from politicians to celebrities. The non-traditional casting in this production is very interesting: women are often playing the roles of men; a Black actress, Marinda Anderson, plays the role of various white men and women, and does a superb job, Asian American actress Shannon Tyo plays everything from

a woman to various male roles, and she does each beautifully and distinctly. Kevin Del Aguila is absolutely amazing in the various roles he portrays, some Hispanic and some white men.

This play repeatedly calls out the issue of white actors portraying Asian characters, thereby putting on a “yellow face,” while Asian actors cannot get the work. Why is this acceptable? How is this far? It is a problem that needs to be addressed, and Hwang bringing it to light, through this comedy, at least starts a conversation. This play looks at the way that Asian Americans have been targeted in this country in some very unfair ways. It makes you realize that politics and fear are often at work and can do a lot of harm. As a society, we have work to do.

“Yellow Face” is brilliantly directed by Leigh Silverman. It has set design by Arnulfo Maldonado, costumes by Anita Yavich, lighting by Lap Chi Chu, sound design and original music by Caroline Eng and Kate Marvin and projection design by Yee Eun Nam.

This is definitely a play worth experiencing. It is an eye-opener that will make you laugh, but it will also make you think. For ticket information visit www.roundabouttheatre.org.

A scene from “Medea: Re-Versed” playing at the Sheen Center, with Sarin Monae West, Jacob Ming-Trent, Mark Martin (in the background).

(Carol Rosegg photo)

A scene from “Yellow Face” playing at the Todd Haimes Theatre: (l-r) Francis Jue, Marinda Anderson, Kevin Del Aguila, Daniel Dae Kim, Ryan Eggold and Shannon Tyo. (Joan Marcus photo)

Saxophonist Benny Golson, ‘Killer Joe’ composer, dies at

Tenor saxophonist and composer Benny Golson died on Sept. 21 at his home in Manhattan. He was 95. Some of his compositions became jazz standards during his seven-decade career that also included writing and arranging music for TV and film.

His daughter, Brielle Golson, confirmed the death but did not provide a specific cause.

In a brief movie appearance, Golson played himself in Steven Spielberg’s 2004 movie, “The Terminal,” in which Tom Hanks plays an Eastern European caught in bureaucratic red tape at JFK International Airport for months while hoping to complete his father’s quest: getting Golson’s autograph, the only one missing of the 57 musicians in the “Great Day in Harlem” 1958 Esquire photo, taken (in front of 17 East 126th Street) by Art Kane. Golson was featured in the 1994 Oscar-nominated documentary about the photo, directed by Jean Bach. With Golson’s passing, Sonny Rollins is the sole surviving musician from the historic jazz photo.

“Even now, at 90, I don’t know everything there is to know, so, when I teach master classes, sometimes the teacher learns from the kids,” Golson told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2019. “That’s the way it is. That’s the way it should be. Like Sonny Rollins said to me once: ‘There’s no end to this music.’”

Golson was the recipient of such awards as the 1996 NEA Jazz Masters, 2021 Grammy Trustees Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, in addition to honorary degrees from the Berklee College of Music, the University of Pittsburgh, and Howard University, where the Jazz Studies program created the “Benny Golson Jazz Master Award” in 1996.

Many of Golson’s compositions have become jazz standards, including “I Remember Clifford” (written in memory of trumpeter Clifford Brown, shortly after he died in a car accident in 1956), “Blues March,” “Along Came Betty,” “Stablemates,” “Whisper Not,” and “Killer Joe.” His friend Quincy Jones recorded two versions of “Killer Joe” on his album “Walking in Space” (A&M Records, 1969) and “Q’s Juke Joint” (Qwest Records, 1995) that

Benny Golson at Kimball’s, San Francisco, with the Jazztet, July 21, 1985. (Photo by Brian McMillen / https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benny_ Golson_1985_(cropped).jpg))

catered to a sophisticated young hip-hop and jazz crowd.

The track featured Tone Loc, Queen Latifah, and Nancy Wilson. The Grammy-winning album reached No. 1 on the Billboard jazz albums chart.

“Benny Golson was a true master of composition and the saxophone,” said alto saxophonist and composer Jaleel Shaw. “He is part of a long lineage of truly incredible musicians from Philadelphia [who] are an important part of the history of this music.”

To describe Golson, it would have to be in the image of “Killer Joe”: cool Joe, hip Joe, always looking exceptional in his suits and shined shoes (cleaner than the board of health), with a vocabulary that sent many a scholar to their nearest dictionary. His big, bold tenor tone danced in riffs and pulled you close on those lyrically intoxicating ballads. That’s Golson, the “Killer Joe” you should know. In his book “Whisper Not: The

Benny Golson at 106th and Broadway, NYC, March 11, 2006. (Photo by Ed Newman / https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benny_Golson.jpg))

Autobiography of Benny Golson” (Temple University, 2016), Golson related the impact as a teenager of seeing the Lionel Hampton band, Earl Bostic, and Dizzy Gillespie with Charlie Parker when they came to town: “This lyrical thunder, this majestic, joyful sound, changed my life.”

After his departure from Howard University, Golson went to New York City and performed with the likes of Hampton and Gillespie. Golson noted his playing experience with Tadd Dameron was the major influence that began his career as a composer. His composing blossomed with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, with three of his future jazz standards — “Are You Real,” “Along Came Betty,” and “Blues March” — appearing on Blakey’s 1958 Blue Note album “Moanin’.”

In 1959, Golson went on to colead his best-known band, the Jazztet, with trumpeter and flügelhorn player Art Farmer. They re-

Golson was born on January 25, 1929, in Philadelphia. His father, also named Bennie, worked for the National Biscuit Company; his mother, Celedia, was a seamstress. He later changed the spelling of his first name to Benny. He started playing the family’s upright piano at 9 but switched to saxophone at 14, after watching a performance by tenor saxman Arnett Cobb with Lionel Hampton’s big band at the Earle Theater in Philadelphia.

As a teenager, Golson played with local young musicians on their way to jazz luminary status such as John Coltrane, drummer Philly Joe Jones, and the Heath Brothers. This eruption of talent heightened Philadelphia’s image as a recognized hotbed for jazz.

corded and performed from 1959 to 1962. The group launched the careers of pianist McCoy Tyner and trombonists Grachan Moncur III and Curtis Fuller. Golson and Farmer met for reunions during the 1980s and ’90s before Farmer’s death in 1999.

By the mid-1960s, Golson was ready to stretch beyond his saxophone playing and take his music writing to Los Angeles, where his friend Quincy Jones was making inroads in writing and arranging music for television and film. “I wanted to do more than play the tenor sax,” he said, in a New York Times interview. “I wanted to write.”

Within a short period in Los Angeles, Golson had scored such beloved TV shows of the era as “M*A*S*H,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “The Partridge Family.” His jazzy music defined these shows and became just as noteworthy as his jazz standards. He also wrote the music for the 1969 film comedy “Where It’s At.”

In a DownBeat interview from the archives, Golson reflected on his teen years with his buddy Coltrane. “Coltrane and I were doing the same thing. There were no school jazz programs. Then right in the middle of all this, along comes Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Coltrane and I are trying to learn the traditional stuff, and not very good at it. Then this new stuff comes out,” Golson said. “So, we’re trying to pick up on this new music before we’ve learned the old stuff. We had a kind of oath of determination to try to imbibe this music and make it part of our psyche. But Coltrane was always a little ahead of the rest of us. When we got to where he was, he was always somewhere else. He had a penchant for that — to always reach. But his reach never exceeded his grasp. He always got to it.” Golson continued touring and recording into his late 80s, splitting time between New York, Los Angeles, and Friedrichshafen in Germany. He released his final album, “Horizon Ahead,” in 2016 for the High Note label. It was full of wistful, aching melodies, and although he was 87 at the time, his saxophone playing was just as vigorous as it had always been.

“Melody is so important to me,” Golson told jazz writer Anthony Brown in 2009. “I always felt like (a song) should have some melodic content, something that’s memorable, something that has the possibility of living past my time.” Golson is survived by his wife Bobbie Hurd, along with their daughter, Brielle Golson, and several grandchildren. Three sons with his first wife — Odis, Reggie, and Robert — predeceased him.

NYers canvass

Wisconsin—but we don’t talk enough about battleground states. The difference is a battleground means [that] by registration, there’s more Democrats than Republicans [and] turnout is low.”

Whitaker said New York technically has seven races where Dems are running in highly competitive Republican districts: Laura Gillen in Long Island’s 4th Congressional District (Nassau County); former Congressmember Mondaire Jones in upstate’s (Rockland County) 17th Congressional District; Congressmember Tom Suozzi, 3rd Congressional District; John Avlon, Long Island’s 1st Congressional District; Congressmember Pat Ryan, upstate’s 18th Congressional District in Hudson Valley; Josh Riley, Ithaca’s 19th Congressional District; and John Mannion, 22nd Congressional District in Syracuse’s Onondaga and Madison counties.

What’s at stake, said Whitaker, is Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries becoming Speaker of the House, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer holding his position as Senate Majority Leader, and making sure Harris has a cooperating Senate and Congress should she get elected.

Long photo)

“Onward to victory in November,” said Gov. ber and make Kamala Harris president of the United States, and I’m working on making

said she plans to make the state party a powerhouse for national Dem-

Walz vs. Vance

Continued from page 3

of Israel and its proxies is an absolute, fundamental necessity for the United States to have steady leadership there. You saw it experienced today, where, along with our Israeli partners and our coalition, we were able to stop the incoming attack. But what’s fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter. It’s clear. And the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago. A nearly 80-yearold Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need at this moment.”

Unlike Walz, who cited Israel several times, Vance only mentioned the nation once, noting, “Look, it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are when they’re fighting the bad guys. I think that’s the right approach to take with the Israel question.”

In his closing remarks—the most extensive of the night, Vance never mentioned Trump, which was another indication of his keeping his distance from his own running mate. Walz stressed the importance of Harris’s plan, quoting Maya Angelou and FDR: “Kamala Harris is bringing us a new way forward. She’s bringing us a politics of joy. She’s bringing real solutions for the middle class. And she’s centering you at the heart of that, all the while asking everyone, ‘Join this movement. Make your voices heard. Let’s look for a new day where everybody gets that opportunity and everybody gets a chance to thrive.’”

Hochul

Brooklyn Democratic Party member Sabrina Gates. (Ariama C.

Ellen Irene Diggs, early anthropologist and assistant to Du Bois

By HERB BOYD Special to the AmNews

Finding a female African American anthropologist born before World War l is a difficult task, but easier than finding one prominent Black woman “exoduster” (participant in the Black migration from the South to Kansas that came to be known as the “Great Exodus”) to cite after Pap Singleton last week. Ellen Irene Diggs fulfilled our mission in the former search. She was a remarkable scholar, sufficiently qualified to impress the fastidious W.E.B. Du Bois.

Born in 1906 in Monmouth, Ill., a small town near the Iowa border, Diggs was one of five children raised in a working-class family. Even so, she was very much aware of the poverty and economic inequality in her community. A voracious reader as a child, she soon converted her fascination with newspapers and magazines to textbooks as a student at Monmouth College, where she was a scholarship student as a result of achieving the highest scholastic average at a local high school. Later, she transferred to the University of Minnesota, which had a more extensive offering of courses.

At the university, Diggs majored in sociology with a minor in psychology, graduating in 1928 with a bachelor of science degree. She then enrolled in Atlanta University to pursue her master’s degree, and received the university’s first master’s degree in 1933. In 1944, she earned her doctorate in anthropology at the University of Havana.

During her stay at Atlanta University, Diggs registered for a class taught by Du Bois, who had returned to the university. She was such an outstanding student that Du Bois hired her as a research assistant that summer. This would begin more than a decade of working in close association with Du Bois. Not only was she indispensable as a researcher, particularly for such books as “Black Folk Then and Now,” she co-founded the journal “Phylon: A Review of Race and Culture” with him.

David Levering Lewis, in his second volume on the life of Du Bois, cites Diggs more than a dozen

times, another indication of just how significant she was to the research and writing of her mentor. As Lewis noted, “She had been invaluable on the Reconstruction project. As the years passed, she was to be found…at his side in Atlanta and then in New York, until faculty responsibilities with Morgan State College’s sociology department confined her to Baltimore.”

Diggs also often functioned as Du Bois’s secretary, as she did in 1941 in a letter to Helena Jacobs, advising her via the words of Du Bois to use his autobiography “Dusk of Dawn” as a possible source for material for her paper.

Before taking a position at Morgan

State, Diggs had traveled and studied extensively in Latin America, mainly putting her anthropological background and Spanish language studies to great use. In a profile by A. Lynn Bolles in Jessie Carney Smith’s “Notable Black American Women,” we learn of her expertise in Afro-Latin American culture, which made her a trailblazer in blending cultures.

Such an immersion resulted in the publication of numerous articles in “Phylon, the Journal of Negro History,” as well as newspaper articles in the Baltimore Sun newspaper. She was a member of several organizations and associations, and even with teaching as a

full-time endeavor, found time to participate in countless seminars, conferences, and lecture series, especially as they pertained to Afro-Latin American topics. One of her most important books was “Black Chronology: From 4000 BC to the Abolition of the Slave Trade” (1983), a thoughtful and thorough analysis of diasporan ideas and contributions.

Diggs was 92 when she died in 1998 and Morgan State University received a grant of nearly $250,000 to support her research as a “pioneering Black anthropologist”—one of the many tributes she received during a lifetime of travel, research, and writing.

ACTIVITIES

FIND OUT MORE

The books about Du Bois by David Levering Lewis and articles by A. Lynn Bolles are worthwhile resources.

DISCUSSION

Much more information is available for those interested in probing the relationship between Diggs and Du Bois.

PLACE IN CONTEXT

Diggs lived for almost the entirety of the 20th century and was tireless in her pursuit of Black and Latin American history and culture.

CLASSROOM IN THE THIS WEEK IN BLACK HISTORY

Oct. 1, 1945: Singer and musician Donny Hathaway was born in Chicago. He died in 1979.

Oct. 2, 1937: Lawyer Johnnie Cochran was born in Shreveport, La. He died in 2005.

Oct. 3, 1954: The Rev. Al Sharpton was born in Brooklyn, NY.

Ellen Irene Diggs (left) (Photo courtesy of Morgan State University)

report, green jobs grew at more than twice the rate of total state jobs between 2015 and 2019, but the COVID19 pandemic in 2020 caused that number to sharply decline by 31.9%.

Over the last few years, the state has worked hard to rebuild its clean energy industry as the effects of climate change worsen. The state provided 5,800 jobs between 2021 and 2022, totaling about 171,000 clean energy jobs in 2022. Of that total, 31 percent of these jobs were within “disadvantaged communities” identified by the New York Climate Justice Working Group (CJWG), according to New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

This year’s federal United States Energy & Employment Report indicates that New York’s clean industry has definitely rebounded, with 325,693 energy workers statewide in 2023, representing 3.9% of all U.S. energy jobs.

Nurse’s office said unions have negotiated a project labor agreement that will ensure union labor is used for the installations. Vincent Alvarez, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, and Climate Jobs New York director, said in a statement that union members have been working hard to see this bill pass, and are very thankful for the City Council’s support.

“During Climate Week, it’s particularly gratifying to see how our union workers, environmental advocates, and elected officials can come together to make our city a leader on climate action and creating good union jobs,” Alvarez said.

Solar panel installations, in particular, require serious skills, said Lenore Friedlaender, acting executive director of Climate Jobs New York. “Here’s what I know about work on roofs: It’s high up there, it’s dangerous, it can get scary, especially if you don’t have the safety training and proper safety equipment,” she said. “The union fights really hard to get work and to prepare workers

for whatever that work is.”

Passing this legisla tion was a primary goal of the coalition’s CarbonFree and Healthy Schools campaign, said Friedlaender, since schools count as public buildings.

The pandemic highlighted that many of the city’s school buildings are in need of basic repairs and upgrades, including antiquated heating and air conditioning systems, deteriorating rooftops, and outdated electrical grids.

There’s been a bigger push to make sure all schools have solar panels, energy-efficiency retrofits, and updated HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems.

The city’s biggest unions agreed that they are excited about the opportunity to perform installations and help the city meet its climate goals.

“Our members have been on the frontlines of hurricanes, power outages and global pandemics,” said John Santos, secretary-treasurer of 32BJ SEIU, in a statement. “They stepped up during Hurricane Sandy, helping to shelter displaced New Yorkers in our public schools, and are showing up again, today, for this important legislation that will reduce local carbon emissions and create thousands of good green jobs for working New Yorkers.”

“We applaud the City Council for its overwhelming support of this important legislation,” said Henry Garrido, executive director of District Council 37, in a statement. “Installing solar on our public buildings and public schools will create new jobs, benefit neighborhoods that have historically suffered the brunt of climate disasters, and save the city money [that] can be used for additional energy efficiency retrofits. Taking proactive measures to address climate change and ensure NYC’s public buildings and schools can truly be clean, safe, and healthy places to learn and work is a win for New Yorkers.”

dable Housing for Rent

TRUCTED UNITS AT 31-90 29th Street,

109 East 9 h

Storefront, New York NY 10003 Only send one application per development. Do not submit duplicate applications. Do not apply online and also send in a paper application. Applicants who submit more than one application may be disqualified. When is the Deadline?

Applications must be postmarked or submitted online no later than [November 27 2024]. Late applications will not be considered. What Happens After You Submit an Application? After the deadline, applications are selected for review through a lottery process. If yours is selected and you appear to qualify, you will be invited to submit documents to continue the process of determining your eligibility Appointments are usually scheduled from 2 to 10 months after the application deadline. You will be asked to bring documents that verify your household size, identity of members of your household, and your household income.

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Health

How government is fighting menthol cigarettes’ grip on Black community

By HEATHER M. BUTTS, JD, MPH, MA Special to the AmNews

The federal government has taken unprecedented measures over the last few years to stop the proliferation of menthol cigarettes in the country, primarily in the Black community. Some of those measures were halted on April 26, 2024, when the White House indefinitely delayed a ban on menthol cigarettes.

Dr. Yolanda Lawson, president of the National Medical Association, responded to the delay with a statement that “[m] enthol enhances the effects of nicotine in brain function, making it highly addictive. Smoking especially harms Black communities and other vulnerable groups, and the tobacco industry must be held accountable for its direct marketing to Black adults and youth with ongoing campaigns since the 1960s.”

While efforts to ban menthol cigarettes throughout the country might be on hold, NYS Quitline is arming individuals with the tools to free themselves from the grip of tobacco product addiction.

Tony Astran, public information specialist with the New York State Quitline, told the Amsterdam News about the Quitline, which formerly had the name “smokers” in it, but that was dropped to make the initiative more inclusive and less stigmatizing. “We’re a resource — nonjudgmental, skilled, helpful, and professional,” Astran said — “a one-stop-shop for anybody who is looking for resources, whether they themselves are looking to cut down or quit use of products, or they’re a healthcare professional or an educator or family or friend.”

The Quitline might be viewed as a place to call for advice, it’s much more expansive than that, Astran said. “You can get yourself some free patches and gum or lozenges to help learn how to quit…[and get] connected with a trained coach to get that individualized attention, to learn about what your triggers are, and walk through a quick plan.” In terms of menthol cigarettes specifically, “We know that they are just simply there, easier to get hooked on, much harder to quit.”

In an interview with the Amsterdam News, Avani Bhatnagar Ansari, program manager for New York City Treats Tobacco, said “menthol smoking really lies at the intersection of public health and social justice.” The effect of menthol cigarettes on Black communities that can be “already disproportionately impacted…and disenfranchised,” Ansari said. New York City

Treats Tobacco partners with healthcare organizations in the five boroughs to make sure patients are getting screened and then treated for tobacco use. The organization also works on policies and provides training, patient health, and education sessions.

“It’s so interesting, what we found,” Ansari said. “It was so inspiring to hear how many people wanted to make a change in their smoking and/or vaping, and whether that’s quitting or reducing, and the struggles they have with that, and how difficult

it is. It’s really interesting to note, too, that so many people know they have been specifically targeted by the tobacco industry.”

It often takes multiple attempts to quit smoking generally and menthol products specifically, but it can be done, Ansari said: “The more you know, the more quit attempts…the easier and easier it becomes, because then [people] learn more about their triggers [and] what worked well last time, what didn’t work well last time.”

The Quitline recently launched enhanced

services (https://nysmokefree.com/menthol), including self-paced workshops and resources specifically tailored to groups such as the Black community, which is the most affected by such products.

Ansari noted that the New York City Department of Health’s Neighborhood Action Centers, which the AmNews reported on earlier this year, provide a variety of resources for smoking cessation, particularly in the Bronx.

Ansari is hopeful for the future. “Quitting commercial tobacco products is one of the hardest things to do, but hundreds of New Yorkers do it every day, and even more reduce every day. Our key is connecting folks with the resources to help them get there. A lot of people do not know where to turn when they are looking to quit or reduce. It can be really overwhelming… The message is that it isn’t impossible.”

The NY Quitline encourages all those living in New York State to make 2024 smoke-free by calling 1-866-NY-QUITS (1-866-6978487), texting QUITNOW to 333888, or visiting nysmokefree.com. Participants can connect with a specialist through an online chat, request a call-back, order free nicotine replacement therapy medications, and register for the six-week Learn2QuitNY text messaging program.

(Mattes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Adams indictments

and then we can make our decisions.”

Over the weekend, Adams attended a Greater Allen AME Cathedral of New York celebration for their new pastor, Reverend Stephen Green, in St. Albans, Queens. Adams spoke about memories of his mother in front of the congregation, but not necessarily the indictment or fighting the charges. He was wholly embraced by churchgoers. Adams flat-out refuses to resign. He asserted again that he was being “targeted,” possibly denoting the image of a Black man of faith demonized by law enforcement or higher levels of the U.S. government, which has historically been the case for many Black civil rights leaders, such as Sharpton, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, aka Malcolm X.

Like Adams, Bronx Assemblymember Michael Blake, who founded and leads the Kairos: Democracy Project, sees nothing wrong with being an avid churchgoer while in politics. However, he said that it’s “unacceptable” that the city’s Black and Brown community does not have a functioning government and that for Adams to lean on the “Black Trump” claim that the investigation is a lie is “ridiculous.”

“I’m a Black man who’s worked at the highest levels of government, and I’ve never had the feds raid me,” said Blake in criticizing Adams’s claims that he’s being targeted. Adams and the clergy were heckled mercilessly by attendees at last Thursday’s press conference. They also criticized Adams for playing the race card. “This is not a Black thing, this is not a Black thing; this is a you thing,” said one man, screaming at Adams.

“Your policies are anti-Black. You’re a disgrace to all Black people in this city.”

Attorney Olayemi Olurin, one of Adams’s harshest critics, blasted him for “crying” about anti-Blackness when she confronted him over furthering “obviously racist and anti-Black policies.” When the two sparred verbally at the Breakfast Club earlier this year, Adams pushed back on criticism of expanding the city’s carceral system by arguing that Black mayors of major U.S. cities — like Karen Bass of Los Angeles, Brandon Johnson of Chicago, and himself — were being uniquely targeted.

“He weaponizes and uses [his Blackness] as a shield,” said Olurin over the phone. “It’s no different than…in him going and finding Black people to stand by him at his press conference or after my Breakfast Club interview, when he went…to Al Sharpton to baptize him at Rikers.

“I wouldn’t go as far as to put it on all Black politicians, but there is a certain danger when you get obviously anti-Black Black people, and give them the ability to weaponize their Blackness to hide from accountability.”

Not everyone in the Black interfaith community shares a harsh denouncement of Adams, though. A few pastors Amsterdam News reached out to said they were praying

for him and the city at this point.

“I just pray for him that he’ll come out victoriously,” said Bronx Miracle Gospel Tabernacle Rev. Dr. Rabbi Keith Elijah Thompson. “When it comes to state and things, you cannot judge them just like that because of what transpires. He’s a man that clearly shows faith in God so the church prays for him, and you can’t go wrong with that. You look for spiritual advisement to make sure you’re on the right path. Whether he did it [or not]...when David was wrong, God forgave him.”

Thompson added that Adams was elected as a Black mayor by churchgoers who wanted to see him lead. For them, he can’t be called guilty until proven guilty.

Rev. Dr. Robert M. Waterman, who heads the African American Clergy and Elected Officials Organization (AACEO), said that he’s “just been praying for the city” as far as Adams goes. He said that generally speaking, “the Black Church” as a collective voting power has been “used and abused” in U.S. politics.

“During voting time, Black churches are used, but when it comes down to it, the resources for the Black community—it seems as though every other culture can come in on the back of civil rights and obtain the favor of government, but yet and still, those that came in handcuffed and chained [don’t],” Waterman said.

According to Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a statement, “The indictment of a sitting mayor is a serious and sober moment for New York City. Like every other New Yorker and American, Eric Adams is entitled to the presumption of innocence. That principle is central to the administration of justice in the U.S. A jury of the mayor’s peers will now evaluate the charges in the indictment and ultimately render a determination. In the meantime, I pray for the well-being of our great city.”

U.S. Attorney Damien Williams for the Southern District of New York discussed the charges in depth at a press conference on Sept. 26.

“Public office is a privilege,” Williams said. “We allege that Mayor Adams abused that privilege and broke the law — laws that are designed to ensure that officials like him serve the people, not the highest bidder, not a foreign bidder, and certainly not a foreign power. These are brightred lines, and we allege the mayor crossed them again and again for years. That is the only reason we are here today.”

Williams added that, “Second, this investigation continues. We continue to dig, and we will hold more people accountable, and I encourage anyone with information to come forward and to do so before it is too late.

“Third, the Southern District of New York

remains committed to rooting out corruption without fear or favor and without regard to partisan politics. We are not focused on the right or the left. We are focused only on right and wrong. That is our duty, and we will fulfill it.”

By Sept. 29, Adams urged a federal judge to dismiss the charges brought against him by “zealous prosecutors” that he said do not rise to the level of a federal crime. In addition to pleading not guilty, Adams’s attorney Alex Spiro filed a lawsuit, calling the charges “extraordinarily vague.”

“When you look at these faith leaders, they’re not political, they’re people,” said Adams at his press conference on Oct. 1. Compared to his usual press conference, the affair was somber and without introduction music or his usual entourage of deputy mayors. It was just Adams in the rotunda of City Hall, staring down a gaggle of reporters.

“I lean into my faith and I will continue to do so, and I don’t lean into my faith during hard times. I do it during all times,” he said. “I’ve been consistent throughout my entire career on the power of my belief and faith…those leaders know me, and they know I authentically care about the people of the city.”

Adams was back in court on Oct. 2, where prosecutors suggested potentially adding further charges to the embattled mayor.

NYPD officers posted outside Gracie Mansion (East End Avenue and 88th Street) after the Adams indictment

Thursday, Sept. 26. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Education

Harlem Hoops for Democracy: Eagle Academy basketball duo inspires student-led voter registration drive

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

The Harlem Eagle Academy for Young Men, a predominantly Black and Brown allboys school, held a nonpartisan voter registration drive on campus last week with the goal of increasing voter turnout among parents and eligible students in this year’s critical presidential election.

From the outside, the academy appeared serene and quiet on Thursday afternoon, betraying the flurry of activity within. Inside, students and basketball players from sixth grade all the way to seniors, dressed in neat blue suit and tie combos, milled about on every floor. Some were in the lobby, ushering parents to voter registration tables and then into the cafeteria to enjoy a spread of chicken dishes and sides—a small reward for showing up and being involved.

The school made a concerted effort to include voter education for its students, especially for those 16 and older who are allowed to pre-register to vote. New York state law, passed by former Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2019, pre-registers 16- and 17-year-olds with the Board of Elections (BOE) or Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) so they can automatically vote when they turn 18. This was seen as an essential step in increasing voter turnout among young people during midterm and general elections; many felt disenfranchised and disillusioned with the state of U.S. politics.

“I got registered earlier this month,” said Nile Edwards, 17. “In school, we had an event and they had the whole senior class tell us why it’s important for young men to vote. I think it’s important for people of my age to get more into politics and U.S. history. Whenever I turn 18, I’m already in the system so I can vote right away.”

Younger students in the second floor office were hard at work staffing the phones and calling parents in an effort to get them to register to vote. Instructional Coach Jacqueline Andrade helped supervise the phone bank.

“I’m excited to see our young men getting involved in the voting system and actually making these calls,” Andrade said. “Alerting adults, parents, young men and women of age to go out and express their decision [is] so important. Whatever they vote for…, it’s important to exercise that right.”

“Our school not only stands as an eagle, but Eagle Harlem,” said Boubacar “Boobie” Balde, 16, “It’s very important for us to go out into the community.”

Edwards, who is varsity basketball team captain as well as a founding member of the National Honor Society at Harlem Eagle Academy, and Balde, who is varsity basketball team

co-captain and a member of Teaching a Generation (T.A.G), are the duo behind the student-athlete voter drive at Harlem Eagle, playing to their principles of discipline, education, and basketball.

The two have been friends and teammates for years. They initially met as sixth graders at Harlem Eagle. Balde left that year and Edwards left the school in eighth grade. Both reunited in high school, encouraged by their coaches and Principal Ahmed Edwards (no relation to Nile).

Balde said that coming back to Harlem Eagle helped him transition from a “very dark spot” in his life and make a pivotal change into who he is now. Edwards concurred, saying that his school environment before Harlem Eagle was depressing and made him feel like he was failing.

They said that basketball helps them be competitive, but also inspires them to work hard and stay motivated in their real lives to tackle larger issues. They agree that right now, there is little more important than what’s going on with the country as current Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to hold that office, and former President Donald Trump go headto-head for the U.S. presidency.

“What we really need is to be educated on voting,” said Balde about younger voters.

“Whoever’s elected into office will affect the way we live in the future, so if we don’t know who we’re allowing in office, it may harm us or positively affect us, depending on the decision they make behind the table. We just want to push people out there to go and vote so we can have leaders in office [who] will help people like us: Black and Brown people.”

This is the fifth Eagle Academy school after its founder, Schools Chancellor David Banks, who’s slated to resign from his position in December, opened the first one in the Bronx back in 2004. Banks’s Eagle Academy Foundation has schools in Brownsville in Brooklyn, South Jamaica in Queens, and Newark, N.J. The Harlem Eagle Academy is also called the Percy E. Sutton Educational Complex, after the first Black man to be elected Manhattan borough president. The school was named after Sutton’s death in 2010 by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a memorial.

“To see these guys taking a leadership role— that just tells me that something’s working— that the seeds we planted in the first two years they were here are now coming to fruition,” said Edwards. “A lot of the culture I’m learning, I learn from them, so I’m just as much a student in this game as they are in terms of the academics. They’re doing a lot of teaching

as well…for me as a school leader, that’s what it’s about. It’s about opening up a space where students can take agency [for] the voter registration drive. This is them.”

Upstairs in the school’s gym, affectionately referred to as “the cage” because of its claustrophobic size and shape, other players were practicing basketball drills with Athletic Director Coach Jermel Collins-Day and Assistant Coach Moustapha Mbaye.

“It gives them a voice,” said Collins-Day about politics and sports. “When you’re playing basketball, that gives you an opportunity to show all the work you’ve been putting in, and I think that goes hand-in-hand with politics: making sure you do your research on who you’re voting on, and then when it’s time to vote, make your choice.”

Collins-Day and Mbaye said that as mentors and father figures, it is critical to remind their athletes, especially as young Black men, that they have choices in sports and outside of it. “They just need exposure,” said Mbaye. “To let them know what’s out there is extremely important.”

The Department of Education (DOE) said it is currently engaged in voter education and activation efforts in other neighborhoods with historically low voter turnouts. The hope is to have an impact on this election and on New York City’s future as more students reach voting age.

“We believe that civic education and engagement are critical to ensuring our students graduate with the knowledge, skills, and values needed to be active participants in the democratic process and in their communities,” said Nicole Brownstein, NYC Public Schools first deputy Press secretary.

“Through our Civics for All program, over 85,000 students have registered to vote over the last five years, and we are optimistic that this will have a tremendous impact on voter turnout for this upcoming election.”

Harlem Eagle Academy for Young Men Varsity Basketball Team members (left to right): Boubacar “Boobie” Balde, Nile Edwards, with Athletic Director Coach Jermel Collins-Day, Assistant coach Moustapha Mbaye, and other players in the school’s gym on Thursday, Sept. 26 (Andy Harris photos)

Harlem Eagle Academy students volunteer to register parents to vote

Harlem Eagle Academy student participates in phone drive to call parents and remind them to register to vote on Thursday, Sept. 26, at 6 Edgecombe Avenue

Curaçao

also an element of cohesion in Curaçao’s diversity: There are evangelicals and Pentecostals, but the local religion is mostly Roman Catholic with adaptations of African or Afro Caribbean beliefs.

The question of where Curaçao’s Africans came from is rather complicated because the official documents don’t match the social and demographic reality. In addition, the wars with Portugal, France, England, and Spain created an African community with roots in the Senegalese coast, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast, and revolving around the entire west coast of Africa due to the raids by European buccaneers and the wars between the Congo and Angola kingdoms. There is even talk of historical connections with Mozambique.

Curaçao’s Tula and Maria

In Curaçao, as in other Caribbean islands, Africans rebelled against colonialism. “The truth is that the rebellions of kidnapped Africans began on the high seas,” said Henriquez. “The Dutch archives recorded that one in five ships experienced revolts…Rebellions were also brewing in Curaçao. The largest one was led by Tula and his lieutenants.

“Tula was nicknamed ‘Rigaud,’ after the Haitian general Benoit Joseph André Rigaud, one of the heroes of the Haitian

revolution. We don’t know where Tula originally came from, but he knew about the situation in Haiti, where an antislavery revolt led in 1791 by Toussaint L’Ouverture had taken over the colonial regime. Tula, who had escaped enslavement, knew the French Revolution and the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

“A woman named Sablika joined with Tula, as did Pedro Wacao and Louis Merci-

DENTAL Insurance

er, who were Tula’s lieutenants.

“Tula, our great fugitive slave, began his insurrection on August 19, 1795, at the Porto Mari plantation and the Kenepa plantation, at half past eight in the evening, but the colonial army was very powerful, and Tula and his army were defeated. Tula was captured and his execution took place on October 3, 1795, in the Rif (the Reef), on the south coast of the island of Otrabanda.”

Henriquez said Tula’s testimonial words can be found in the archival documents. These are Tula’s words, as recorded by Father Jacobus Schinck: “We have been abused too much, we do not seek to harm anyone, and we only seek our freedom. The French Blacks obtained their freedom, the French occupied Holland, so we must be free here.”

Another self-emancipated Curaçaoan and leader of a slave rebellion was Maria, who was a cook at the Dutch West India Company’s Santa Maria plantation. Maria helped prepare newly captured Africans for disbursement to other plantations. On September 15, 1716, the slaves on the plantation revolted, killing the white personnel who exploited them as well as white women and children in the area. Within 10 days, the Willemstad military was able to put the rebellion down.

One of Maria’s co-conspirators, a man named Tromp, declared under torture that Maria had planned the uprising because she wanted revenge on the foreman, Müller, who was responsible for the death of her husband. Maria was sentenced to death and burned at the stake on November 9, 1716.

The history of Tula and other Africans in Curaçao is occasionally taught in the schools, but there is no established method for promoting this historical material. Most times, the teaching of this falls on cultural groups that specifically deal with issues of African emancipation. For now, all talks of reparations for slavery by the Netherlands appear to be based on calls from Afro Curaçaons.

The Tula Museum’s Professor Jeanne Henriquez (Tula Museum photos) View from Curaçao's Tula Museum

Religion & Spirituality

On the way to the election, choice matters

REV. DR. JACQUI LEWIS

FIERCE LOVE

Recently, Pope Francis told reporters that the candidates for president of the United States are both “...against life” and American voters will need to “choose the lesser evil.”

Are both candidates evil?

Although the Pope has a larger congregation than I do, we are both in the same vocation — communicating what it means to love God, neighbor, and self in the same way. That’s the vision God has for the world, and we’re to help people find their way in that vision.

Sometimes we agree, sometimes we don’t.

I didn’t like the pope putting Vice President Harris and former President Trump in the same bucket. If we lived closer, I’d invite him to my office and say, one preacher to another, “Love, do you really think Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are the same kind of person?” I would start right there.

But the pope and I agree that being Christian means welcoming the stranger and caring for orphans, widows, and immigrants. In fact, Jesus was an immigrant; his parents took him to live in Egypt to avoid an infanticide. That’s why Middle Church works with partners to welcome “new” New Yorkers and have been to the U.S.Mexico border several times, advocating to keep families together and for compassionate policies.

I strongly disagree with the pope’s characterization of abortion as “assassinating” a baby. I am not a scientist, but my research shows that the pope was not accurate when he said that at one month, a fetus has all the human organs. Most of the science says 12 weeks (about 3 months); and that a fetus is viable at 22–24 weeks (about five and a half months).

You can look that up as well as I can, but I am not making a scientific argument.

I am talking about faith and politics here. I have never had an abortion, but I believe fervently in a person’s God-given right to choose what to do with her body. Our government has no business in that conversation, and neither does the church, unless invited for counsel, prayer, or support.

Most faith-full folks agree about abortion

A report from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) shows that Americans of various faiths and denominations believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases; 93% of Unitarian Universalists, 81% of Jews, 79% of Buddhists, and 60% of Muslims also hold that view. In fact, many parts of Judaism require an abortion in some cases.

Researchers also found that most people who adhere to the two major branches of Christianity — Catholicism and Protestantism — also believe abortion should be legal, save for three groups: white evangelical Protestants, Latter-Day Saints, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Historically, the Catholic Church has opposed abortion, but the poll

found that 73% of Catholics of color — PRRI defines this group as Black, Asian, Native American, and multiracial — support the right to have an abortion, followed by 62% of white Catholics and 57% of Hispanic Catholics.

The breadth of religious views on abortion reflects the breadth of religious diversity in our nation. Some parts of the Christian faith community want to impose what they consider to be moral and ethical on the bodies of people who are not even Christian. Women — cis or trans — should have the right to choose what they do with their bodies. Choice matters; bodily autonomy matters.

Complicated thoughts on Harris and Trump

I agree with Vice President Harris’s views on reproductive justice: choice. Affording abortion care is not evil. I agree with what I’ve heard from her on the economy. Quite frankly, I’ve disagreed vehemently with the current administration’s views on Gaza, and to whatever degree she is party to that, I disagree with her. We’ve been funding a horrific sacrifice of innocent life; it’s unethical, and I’ve been loud about it.

I admit it is difficult to tell exactly where presidential candidate Harris is on Gaza. I think she has spoken both “ceasefire, now” and “continue to support Israel.” Can both of those be true? I want to know. I need to hear and see ceasefire, peace, the end of the violence. No more bombs. That’s my truth. I’m praying she is the one who I can work with — whom we can work with — to make the nation we want. My thoughts.

Trump traffics in lies. His electiondenying lie led to the Jan. 6 insurrection, destruction, and death. Lying to cheat on his wives, lying about simple things like sizes of crowds and more complicated things like bleach could cure COVID-19. He is a sexual predator, and one of his wives accused him of rape. Trump will dismantle our democracy. Is Trump evil? Who can know the heart of a person, but I think he is vile; his behavior abhorrent; his intention for our nation menacing. He is not to be trusted, and he is dangerous. My thoughts. What are yours? If we reduce our analysis to who is the lesser evil, we will miss important nuances as we decide our future. What if, instead of speculating about “the lesser evil,” we asked ourselves, “Who can help us achieve the greater good?” We must each ask, “What is right? What is just? How can there be the greatest good in our communities, in our nation, and in our global neighborhood? Which candidate will partner with our humanity to get us there?” Those are choices we make at the polls.

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is senior minister and public theologian at Middle Church in New York. Celebrated internationally for her dynamic preaching and commitment to building a just society with fierce love, Lewis champions racial, economic, and gender/sexuality justice. The author of several books, including “Fierce Love” and the “Just Love Story Bible,” her work has been featured on NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, and NPR, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Ebony and Essence magazines. Follow her @RevJacquiLewis.

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis (center), Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft, and Sarah Sophie Flicker at the Supreme Court during Gender Liberation March, standing for bodily autonomy and against Project 2025.

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In Case

NOTICE OF SALE

Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, Index No. 850087/2022

Six Gramercy LLC, Plaintiff, v. Westside Units 17th Street LLC, et. al., Defendants.

TAKE NOTICE that pursuant to the Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered May 17, 2024, the undersigned referee will sell at public auction on October 9, 2024, at 2:15pm in Room 130 at the Courthouse located at 60 Centre Street, NY, NY, the property located at 7 East 17th Street, Unit 6C, New York, NY 10003 (Block 846, Lot 1310).

The approximate amount of Plaintiff’s lien is $1,443,159.80 plus interest and costs. The premises will be sold in one parcel and subject to provisions of the judgment and terms of sale.

Georgia Papazis, Esq., Referee

Law Offices of Tae H. Whang, LLC, Attorneys for Plaintiff, 185 Bridge Plaza North, Suite 201, Fort Lee, NJ 07024, Tel. (201) 461-0300, 415 White Oak Road, Palisades, NY 10964 (By Appointment Only).

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF NEW YORK ALBANY AVENUE PARTNERS, LLC., Plaintiff AGAINST UPTOWN GAMBIT, INC., MICHAEL T. JOHNSON, ET AL., Defendant(s) Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly entered April 3, 2024, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the New York County Courthouse in Room 130, located at 60 Centre Street, New York, NY on October 30, 2024 at 2:15PM, premises known as 3-5 West 122nd Street, Units 1B, 2C, 3C, 4A, 6A and 6D, New York, NY 10027. Units as identified as 1B, 2C, 3C, 4A, 6A and 6D may all be put up individually for bid. All that certain plot piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, City, County and State of New York, Block: 1721 Lots: 1002, 1007, 1011, 1013, 1021, and 1024. Approximate amount of judgment $989,442.32 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index #850429/2023. The aforementioned auction will be conducted in accordance with the NEW YORK County COVID-19 Protocols located on the Office of Court Administration (OCA) website (https://ww2.nycourts. gov/Admin/oca.shtml) and as such all persons must comply with social distancing, wearing masks and screening practices in effect at the time of this foreclosure sale. Doron Leiby, Esq., Referee Law Offices of Alan J. Waintraub PLLC 125-10 Queens Blvd., Suite 311 Kew Gardens, NY 11415 UPTOWN GAMBIT 80998

NOTICE OF SERVICE OF PROCESS BY PUBLICATION STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, JOHNSTON COUNTY

In the General Court of Justice, Before the Clerk, Superior Court Division of Johnston County, North Carolina:

Margarita Hernandez v. Ramon A. Abreu 24 SP 000051-500

Ramon A. Abreu:

Take notice that a pleading seeking relief against you has been filed in the above-entitled action. The nature of the relief being sought is: Petition to Partition real property located at 2370 Valley Drive, Clayton, NC 27520, and such other and further relief as Petitioner may be entitled.

You are required to make defense to such pleading not later than October 29, 2024, which is forty (40) days from the first publication of this notice, and upon your failure to do so the party seeking service against you will apply to the court for the relief sought. This, the 11th day of September, 2024.

Marcus C. Burrell

Attorney for Petitioner P.O. Box 369 Selma, NC 27576 9/19, 9/26, & 10/3

BRUNSONCLINE LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 07/29/2024. Office location: NEW YORK County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: United States Corporation Agents Inc., 7014 13th Ave, Suite 202, Brooklyn, NY, 11228. Purpose: Any lawful act.

NOTICE OF SALE

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF New York , Ready Capital Mortgage Financing 2019-FL3, LLC , Plaintiff, vs . PB 151 Grand LLC , ET AL., Defendant(s).

Pursuant to a Decision + Order + Judgment on Motion duly entered on May 14, 2024 , I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street, New York, NY 10007 on October 16, 2024 at 2:15 p.m., premises known as 158 Lafayette Street a/k/a 151 Grand Street, New York, NY 10013. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, Block 233 and Lot 17. Approximate amount of judgment is $35,289,017.65 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index #850041/2022. Mark L. McKew, Esq., Referee Duane Morris, LLP, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036, Attorneys for Plaintiff

NOTICE OF SALE

In pursuance and by virtue of a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly granted and entered in an action entitled NYCTL 1998-2 Trust and The Bank of New York Mellon as Collateral Agent and Custodian for the NYCTL 1998-2 Trust v. Reginald Borgella, et al., bearing Index No. 156969/2018 on or about May 3, 2024 and Order entered on or about August 19, 2024, by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, I, the Referee, duly appointed in this action for such purpose, will expose for sale and sell at public auction to the highest bidder on October 16, 2024 at 2:15 p.m., at the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street, Room 130, New York, New York 10007, the liened premises designated as Block 768, Lot 1217, in the City of New York, County of New York and Borough of Manhattan, State of New York and known as 134 Seventh Avenue, Garage Unit 6, New York, New York 10011 , directed in and by said judgment to be sold. The sale will be conducted pursuant to the Court’s Auction Rules and any COVID Restrictions. The approximate amount of the judgment is $10,374.32 plus interest and other charges, and the property is being sold subject to the terms and conditions stated in the judgment, any prior encumbrances and the terms of sale which shall be available at the time of sale.

Dated: September 12, 2024 New York, New York

Roberta Ashkin, Esq. Referee 400 East 70 th Street, Apt. 2205 New York, New York 100215392 (646) 779-8520

David P. Stich, Esq. Attorney for Plaintiff 521 Fifth Avenue, 17th Floor New York, New York 10175 (646) 554-4421

Multiverse Of Stuff LLC LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 06/14/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 357 EDGECOMBE AVENUE APT 5D , NEW YORK, NY 10031. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Safari Atelier NYC LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 10/20/2023. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 900 W 190 ST #15B, New York, NY 10040. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Sport Temp LLC filed w/ SSNY 2/17/21 Off. in NY Co. Process served to SSNY - desig. as agt. of LLC & mailed to Yehuda Brown, 1472 E. 8th St, Brooklyn, NY 11230. The reg. agt. is Yehuda Brown at same address. Any lawful purpose.

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF NEW YORK CITIMORTGAGE, INC., Plaintiff AGAINST ELVIRA P. CHRISTI, ET AL., Defendant(s) Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly entered May 23, 2024, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the New York County Courthouse in Room 130, located at 60 Centre Street, New York, NY on October 16, 2024 at 2:15PM, premises known as 520 West 112th Street Unit 4B, New York, NY 10025. All that certain plot piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, City, County and State of New York, Block 1883, Lot 1104. Approximate amount of judgment $392,131.52 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index #116866/2009. The aforementioned auction will be conducted in accordance with the NEW YORK County COVID-19 mitigation protocols and as such all persons must comply with social distancing, wearing masks and screening practices in effect at the time of this foreclosure sale. Allison M. Furman, Esq., Referee Gross Polowy, LLC 1775 Wehrle Drive Williamsville, NY 14221 18003305 81301

CEZI LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 02/07/2023 Office location: Bronx County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 557 Grand Concourse Suite 6005, Bronx, NY 10451 Purpose: Any lawful act.

SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK. NYCTL 2021-A TRUST AND THE BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON, AS COLLATERAL AGENT AND CUSTODIAN, Plaintiffs -against- E4BOWERY LLC, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered herein on May 9, 2024, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street New York, NY on October 30, 2024 at 2:15 p.m. premises situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, known and designated as Block 459 Lot 1113 on the New York County Tax Assessment Map. Said premises known as 52 EAST 4TH STREET, #PH2, NEW YORK, NY 10003 Approximate amount of lien $219,013.09 plus interest & costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and Terms of Sale. Index Number 157609/2022.

MARK L. MCKEW, ESQ., Referee Phillips Lytle LLP Attorney(s) for Plaintiffs 28 East Main Street, Suite 1400, Rochester, NY 14614

NOTICE OF SALE

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF New York , NYCTL 2021A Trust, and the Bank of New York Mellon as Collateral Agent and Custodian for the NYCTL 2021-A Trust , Plaintiff, vs . 187 Street Mazal LLC , ET AL., Defendant(s).

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale and Decision + Order on Motion dated May 17, 2024 and duly entered on May 21, 2024 , I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street, New York, NY 10007 on October 16, 2024 at 2:15 p.m., premises known as 663 West 187th Street, New York, NY 10033. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, Block 02170 and Lot 0031. Approximate amount of judgment is $46,350.43 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index #159354/2022. Scott H. Siller, Esq., Referee Bronster, LLP, 156 West 56th Street, Suite 703, New York, New York 10019, Attorneys for Plaintiff

Dostar Marketing LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/09/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 330 East 38th Street Apt. 38L, New York, NY, 10016. Purpose: Any lawful act.

SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK

THE BOARD OF MANAGERS OF 435 EAST 117TH STREET CONDOMINIUM, Plaintiff -against- CHRISTINE HEALEY, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale dated June 29, 2023 and entered on July 3, 2023, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the New York County Courthouse located in Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street New York, NY on November 6, 2024 at 2:15 p.m. premises situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, City, State and County of New York, known and designated as Section 6 Block 1711 and Lot 1203. Said premises known as 435 EAST 117TH STREET, UNIT NO. 3, NEW YORK, NY

Approximate amount of lien $57,680.99 plus interest & costs.

Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and Terms of Sale.

Index Number 152950/2022. GEORGIA PAPAZIS, ESQ., Referee

Mitofsky Shapiro Neville & Hazen, LLP

Attorney(s) for Plaintiff 152 MADISON AVENUE, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10016

SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK.

NYCTL 2021-A TRUST AND THE BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON, AS COLLATERAL AGENT AND CUSTODIAN,

Plaintiffs -against- D.K.S LTD, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered herein on May 14, 2024, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street New York, NY on October 23, 2024 at 2:15 p.m. premises situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, known and designated as Block 1262 Lot 602 on the New York County Tax Assessment Map.

Said premises known as 62

WEST 47TH WEST 47TH STREET #608, NEW YORK, NY 10036

Approximate amount of lien $236,520.13 plus interest & costs.

Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and Terms of Sale.

Index Number 158712/2022.

GEORGIA PAPAZIS, ESQ., Referee Phillips Lytle LLP

Attorney(s) for Plaintiffs

28 East Main Street, Suite 1400, Rochester, NY 14614

CONSERVATIVERAP LLC

Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 07/15/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: LEGALCORP SOLUTIONS, 11 BROADWAY SUITE 615, NEW YORK, NY 10004. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Fillet Edge LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/06/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 435 W 31st St., Apt 8G, New York, NY, 10001. Purpose: Any lawful act.

1227 Holdings LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 9/19/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 156A East 83rd Street,, New York, NY 10028. Purpose: Any lawful act.

STAU LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 8/21/2024 Office location: NEW YORK County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: SOHO WORKSPACES, INC., 447 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10013, USA. The registered agent of the LLC is SOHO WORKSPACES, INC., 447 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10013, USA Purpose: Any lawful act.

The Speech And Accent House LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 7/23/24. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: United States Corporation Agents Inc., 7014 13th Ave. Suite 202, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11228. Purpose: Any lawful act.

OPDEE HOLDINGS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 07/28/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 347 W 57TH ST, Suite 40A, New York NY 10019. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of WEITZMAN LITIGATION ADVISORY LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/19/24. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

AMALIER LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 09/04/2024. Office location: NEW YORK County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 224 W 35TH ST STE 500, NEW YORK, NY, 10001. Purpose: Any lawful act.

This Is Neatly LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/22/2024 . Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 275 W 96th St, 10025. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Apparo NYC Cleaning Co LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 8/30/24. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 228 Park Ave S #689045, New York, NY 10003 R/A: US Corp Agents, Inc. 7014 13th Ave, #202, BK, NY 11228. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Stay Strong LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/02/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 400 West 43 Street 35R, NY, NY 10036. Purpose: Any lawful act.

West Seneca Holding, LLC LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 09/06/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: C/O West Seneca Holding, LLC,, 445 Park Avenue, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10022. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Arrakis Ventures LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 06/06/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 7014 13TH AVENUE, SUITE 202 , BROOKLYN, NY, 11228, USA. Purpose: Any lawful act.

676 Broadway LLC filed Arts. of Org. with the Sect'y of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/10/2020. Office: New York County. SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o Boddoohi & Friedlander LLP, 29 W. 125th St, 3rd Fl, NY, NY 10027. Purpose: any lawful act.

Supreme Court-New York County – Hilton Resorts Corp., Pltf. v . Any unknown heirs to the Estate of CONNIE R. ADCOCK, next of kin, devisees, legatees, distributees, grantees, assignees, creditors, lienors, trustees, executors, administrators or successors in interest, as well as the respective heirs at law, next of kin, devisees, legatees, distributees, grantees, assignees, lienors, trustees, executors, administrators or successors in interest of the aforesaid classes of persons, if they or any of them be dead, all of whom and whose names and places of residence are unknown to the Plaintiff, et al., Deft. – Index # 850346/2018 . The foregoing supplemental summons is served upon you by publication pursuant to an Order of the Honorable FRANCIS KAHN, III, Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, dated the 11 th day of September 2024 and duly entered the 13 th day of September 2024 in the office of the Clerk of the County of New York, State of New York. TO THE ABOVE-NAMED DEFENDANTS: YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED to answer the complaint in this action and to serve a copy of your answer, or, if the Complaint is not served with this Summons, to serve a notice of appearance, on the Plaintiff’s attorney, within twenty (20) days after the service of this Summons, exclusive of the day of service (or within thirty (30) days after completion of service where service is made in any other manner than by personal delivery within the State) In case of your failure to appear or answer, judgment will be taken against you by default for the relief demanded in the Complaint.

NOTICE OF NATURE OF ACTION AND RELIEF SOUGHT

THE OBJECT of the above captioned action is for the foreclosure of a fractional interest of 5,000/28,402,100 in the premises at Block 1006, Tax Lot 1302 located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas NY, NY. Mortgage bearing the date of July 31, 2015, executed by Connie R. Adcock to Hilton Resorts Corporation, a Delaware Corporation, to secure the sum of $15,750.00, and interest and recorded in the Office of the Clerk of New York County on October 11, 2011, in CRFN 2011000357147 . The relief sought in the within action is a final judgment directing the sale of the Mortgaged Premises as described above to satisfy the debt secured by the Mortgage described above.

YOU MUST RESPOND BY SERVING A COPY OF THE ANSWER ON THE ATTORNEY FOR THE PLAINTIFF AND FILING THE ANSWER WITH THE COURT.

Tristate Bedbug Dogs LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 07/16/2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 500 8th , New York, NY 10018. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of MISCHIEF MERCANTILE LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 08/16/24. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of MALHOTRA FAMILY 2024, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 08/26/24. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Vikram Malhotra, 168 E. 74th St., Apt. 4C, NY, NY 10021. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Sekai Collective LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 12/15/2023. Office: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail copy to: 340 W 42nd St, Fl 2, New York, NY 10036. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of BARI RESTAURANT EQUIPMENT

LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/18/24. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Mr. Anton Mayer, 240 Bowery, NY, NY 10012. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

FURDONNAS CUSTOM CREATIONS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 07/08/2024 Office location: NEW YORK County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 2588 7TH AVE, BLDG 2, STE 6D, NEW YORK, NY 10039. Purpose: Any lawful act.

STATE OF NEW YORK

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF NEW YORK SUPPLEMENTAL SUMMONS Index No. 850060/2024

WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A., V. Plaintiff, ROHIN HATTIANGADI, STEPHANIE I. BRAUN- HATTIANGADI, THE JOHN WATTS CONDOMINIUM, JOHN DOE, Defendants.

To the above-named Defendants:

You are hereby summoned to answer the complaint in this action and to serve a copy of your answer, or if the complaint is not served with this summons, to serve a notice of appearance on the Plaintiff's attorneys within thirty days after the service of this summons, exclusive of the day of service, and in case of your failure to appear or answer, judgment will be taken against you by default for the relief demanded in the complaint. NOTICE YOU ARE IN DANGER OF LOSING YOUR HOME

If you do not respond to this summons and complaint by serving a copy of the answer on the attorney for the mortgage company who filed this foreclosure proceeding against you and filing the answer with the court, a default judgment may be entered, and you can lose your home. Speak to an attorney or go to the court where your case is pending for further information on how to answer the summons and protect your property.

Sending a payment to your mortgage company will not stop this foreclosure action. YOU MUST RESPOND BY SERVING A COPY OF THE ANSWER ON THE ATTORNEY FOR THE PLAINTIFF (MORTGAGE COMPANY) AND FILING THE ANSWER WITH THE COURT.

This is an attempt to collect a debt, and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.

The foregoing summons is served upon you by publication pursuant to an Order of Honorable Francis A. Kahn III, Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, signed the 9th day of September 2024 at New York, New York.

Notice of Registration of Foreign Limited Liability Partnership Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons, LLP. Notice of Registration filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/27/2024. Office location: 575 Lexington Ave., Ste. 2310, New York, NY 10022, New York County. SSNY designated as agent of LLP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY should mail process to: 700 N. Pearl St., 25th Fl., Dallas, TX 75201. Registration as LLP originally filed on 8/27/2010 with Texas Secy. of State, P.O. Box 13697, Austin, TX 78711 Purpose: The practice of law.

Notice of Qualification of WSC OPCO LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 08/22/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 08/13/24. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, c/o Winter Properties LLC, 9 W. 57th St., 47th Fl., NY, NY 10019. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 60 E 8TH STREET LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/10/24. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: c/o Melissa E. Sydney, Esq., Tarlow, Breed, Hart & Rodgers, P.C., 101 Huntington Ave., Ste. 500, Boston, MA 02199. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

The object of this action is to foreclose a mortgage on the following property: Block 595 Lot 1208 THE UNIT (HEREINAFTER REFERRED TO AS THE "UNIT") KNOWN AS UNIT NO. 5-N IN THE BUILDING (HEREINAFTER REFERRED TO AS THE "BUILDING") KNOWN AS THE JOHN WATTS CONDOMINIUM AND BY THE STREET NUMBER 459 WASHINGTON STREET IN THE BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN, CITY, COUNTY AND STATE OF NEW YORK, SAID UNIT BEING DESIGNATED AND DESCRIBED AS UNIT NO. 5-N IN THE BUILDING, IN THE DECLARATION (THE"DECLARATION") ESTABLISHING A PLAN FOR CONDOMINIUM OWNERSHIP OF THE BUILDING AND THE LAND (HEREINAFTER REFERRED TO AS THE "LAND") UPON WHICH THE BUILDING IS SITUATED, PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 9-B OF THE REAL PROPERTY LAW OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK (HEREINAFTER REFERRED TO AS THE "CONDOMINIUM ACT"), WHICH DECLARATION WAS RECORDED IN THE NEW YORK COUNTY OFFICE OF THE REGISTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK ("CITY REGISTER'S OFFICE") ON JUNE 4, 2002 IN REEL 3530, PAGE 2444. THIS UNIT IS ALSO DESIGNATED AS TAX LOT 1208 IN BLOCK 595 OF THE BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN ON THE TAX MAP OF THE REAL PROPERTY ASSESSMENT DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK AND ON THE FLOOR PLANS OF THE BUILDING, CERTIFIED BY KISS & ZWIGARD, R.A. ON MAY 15, 2002, AND FILED WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK ON MAY 21, 2001, AS CONDOMINIUM PLAN NO. 1238.

Subject to easements, covenants, and restriction of record. These premises are also known as 459 Washington St #5N aka 459 Washington St 5N, New York, NY 10013. Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP

Attorneys for Plaintiff 500 Bausch & Lomb Place Rochester, NY 14604

Notice of Qualification of 945 MADISON AVENUE, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/10/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 09/04/24. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of State of DE, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

SLAINTE ACUPUNCTURE

PLLC. Art of Org. filed with the SSNY on 08/01/2024. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC. THE LLC 114 W 73RD ST. APT 4A, NEW YORK, NY, 10023. Any lawful purpose.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of Cannabis NYC Fund, LLC (the “LLC”) filed with the Secretary of State of the State of New York (“SSNY”) on 08/08/2024. Office location: New York County. The principal business address of the LLC is: One Liberty Plaza, New York, New York 10006. SSNY has been designated as the agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail service of process to c/o New York City Economic Development Corporation, One Liberty Plaza, New York, New York 10006, Attention: General Counsel. Purpose: any lawful purpose.

Townsend & Bastien, LLP Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on July 19, 2024. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 1350 Ave Of The Americas, Flr 2, #1068, New York, New York, 10019. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Notice is hereby given that a license, serial #NA-0340-24137216 for beer, wine & liquor has been applied for by the undersigned to sell beer, wine & liquor at retail in a restaurant under the ABC Law at 791 Lexington Ave., NYC 10065 for on-premises consumption; Ayaz & Avdan Inc.

Notice of Formation of AUGUSTANA HOMES ACQUISITION, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/17/24. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 30 Hudson Yards, 72nd Fl., NY, NY 10001. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

195 HELP WANTED 195 HELP WANTED

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fought his own conviction but helped others challenge theirs.

He continues his work today as program director of the Frederick Douglass Project, which organizes face-to-face conversations in prisons between the public and individuals incarcerated.

Although clemency freed Velazquez, the motion to vacate creates a critical distinction, says expert attorney Jeffrey Deskovic. While the governor can pardon someone on innocence grounds, clemency often indicates mercy rather than vindication.

“The difference between [clemency] and vacating a conviction is now his innocence is established in court,” said Deskovic, a former exoneree himself. “Before that, his innocence was not established, because he only had received clemency. It’s very important, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, to have a court recognize that you’re innocent. That way, you don’t have this charge still on your record.”

Velazquez isn’t alone in the process. In 2019, the Queens County court approved a motion to vacate Felipe Rodriguez’s murder conviction three years after Cuomo commuted his sentence. Deskovic explains that executive clemency authorities allow the governor to release someone incarcerated when “the injustice is clear,” so they can work out the legal process.

But Velazquez fears time is running out for many wrongfully convicted New Yorkers. Research suggests incarceration accelerates aging. Yet even with a case mitigated by executive clemency and consistently platformed by NBC “Dateline” producer Dan Slepian, Velazquez waited for nearly three years for closure.

“Glad [my motion to dismiss] came down to the right resolutions, but they don’t understand that you’re playing with people’s lives, and everybody [doesn’t] have the same length of time,” said Velazquez. “I know people who have been exonerated and died within a year. They really got to get how serious this is … because [in prison] you don’t have access to quality health care, you don’t have access to quality mental health care, and you’re being put under all these conditions that create anxiety and increased stress in your body [and] face.

“People really don’t get what it’s like to be in prison. And there’s nobody who could actually make somebody understand what it is until you actually go through it yourselves.”

101 LEGAL NOTICES

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Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/ amnews1.

Amsterdampg2

Sports Business Journal brings together women in sports for professional

By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews

The 12th annual Sports Business Journal Game Changers conference was held last week at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Attended by powerhouses from the sports and corporate worlds, attendees learned about career development, sponsorships, mentoring, and exciting new initiatives.

“I like learning about other women in sports because I don’t feel like they always get highlighted as much,” said Amanda Oliver, executive vice president and chief legal officer for NASCAR, and a past Game Changers honoree. “Some do and that’s great, but I think for a lot of us who may be in roles that people don’t know about, it’s a great opportunity to put yourself forward.”

Speakers and panelists reflected on networking and attendees made the most of it. “As driven women, you’re always wanting to grow and learn,” said Oliver.

Dr. Tunisha Singleton, a media psychologist, professor, and inclusive media strategy and innovation consultant, appreciated the environment. “I feel there’s a lot of synergy in terms of what we all stand for and believe in — community, diversity, representation, empowering women to empow-

er women. That’s important and unspoken a lot of times,” she said.

A recurring theme was building confidence over the course of one’s career.

Among the speakers was Nicole Lynn, president of football operations for KLUTCH Sports Group, who spoke about being authentic and knowledgeable, and striving for excellence. WWE superstar Jade Cargill discussed finding the sport of wrestling as well as being a businesswoman. She and her husband own the Texas Smoke, a franchise

Athlos NYC at Icahn Stadium showcases all-women track and field athletes growth initiatives

in Women’s Professional Fastpitch. Everyone in their front office is African American, which Cargill believes sets an example of leadership. A panel from the NFL and Verizon presented a new program that will enable female broadcasters to develop their skills and resumes.

Philicia Douglas, director of partnership and spring training business development for the Minnesota Twins, said the conference provided a time to celebrate and come together.

“I’m learning that every person has their

challenges and things that they’re going through, but it doesn’t mean you can’t overcome and do great things,” said Douglas, who is also part of a 20-woman cohort chosen as future leaders by Wasserman, a sports marketing and talent management company.

“Some of the speakers we heard, from Nicole to Jade, both of them had struggles that they overcame and look at where they are today. I’ve learned it doesn’t matter who you are — if you have the ambition and the grit, you can make it on top.”

By DERREL JOHNSON Special to the AmNews

Athlos NYC drew many stars on and off the track to Icahn Stadium at Randall’s Island in New York City for a one-of-a-kind event that saw 36 women compete in six track and field contests. The event, held last Thursday and formerly known as the 776 Invitational, was created by Alexis Ohanian, best known as the co-founder of Reddit and the husband of tennis icon Serena Williams.

Among the well known figures in attendance was television producer/screenwrit-

er/director Shonda Rhimes, actress Lupita Nyong’o, hip-hop artist and reality television personality Flavor Flav, actress Marsai Martin; co-host of the “7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony & The Kid Mero” podcast

The Kid Mero, and four-time Olympic gold winning athlete and television sports commentator Sanya Richards-Ross. Hip hop legend and world-renowned DJ, D-Nice, created the vibe before, between and after the six events, playing an eclectic mix of music for the diverse crowd of about 5,000. Three-time Grammy Award-winner Megan Thee Stallion closed out the event

with a 30-minute performance.

Sprinter Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, who was born in Charleston, South Carolina, competed collegiately for the University of Kentucky and took home gold in the women’s 100-meter hurdles at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, won the first race of the meet, the women’s 100-meter hurdles, in a time of 12.36, defeating Jamaica’s Danielle Williams, Charisma Taylor from the Bahamas, and Americans Alaysha Johnson, Masai Russell, and Tonea Marshall.

Marie Josée Ta Lou from the Ivory Coast won the women’s 100 meters in a time of

10.98, defeating Zoe Hobbs from New Zealand, Great Britain’s Daryll Neita, and Celera Barnes, Candace Hill and Brittany Brown of the United States.

The Dominican Republic’s Marileidy Paulino captured first place in the 400 meters, clocking 49.59, besting Lieke Klaver from the Netherlands, Salwa Naser from Bahrain, and Americans Lynna Irby-Jackson, Shamier Little and Alexis Holmes.

Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma won the 800 meters with a time of 1:57.43. Jamaican Natoya Goule-Toppin, Halimah Nakaayi from Uganda, Mary Moraa from Kenya, and Americans Addy Wiley and Nia Akins rounded out the race.

Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon won the longest race of the evening, completing the 1,500 meters in 4:04.79, outpacing fellow Kenyan Susan Ejore, Cory McGee of the United States, Great Britain’s Katie Snowden, and Ethiopians Gudaf Tsegay and Diribe Welteji.

In the final contest, Gabby Thomas, who won three gold medals at the Paris Olympics, was upset by Brittany Brown in a photo finish. Brown, who won bronze in Paris, finished with a time of 22.18, just ahead of Thomas, who completed the race just 0.03 seconds later at 22.21. Australia’s Torrie Lewis, and Americans Jenna Prandini, Tamara Clark, and Anavia Battle also competed in the final race of the evening.

Philicia Douglas (standing), an executive with the Minnesota Twins of MLB, and NASCAR executives Amanda Oliver and Latasha Causey, took part in the 12th annual SBJ Game Changers conference held in Manhattan last week. (Lois Elfman photos)

Sprinter Jasmine Camacho-Quinn crosses the finish line first in the 100 meter hurdles at Athlos NYC. (Photo Courtesy Athlos Photo Team)

Coming off crucial losses, Jets, Giants prepare for Week 5

By JAIME C. HARRIS AmNews Sports Editor

The NFL season is just four games into its schedule, but some teams are already facing prohibitive odds to make the playoffs based on historical data. At 2-2, the Jets still have, based on the aggregate of several sports gaming models, a roughly 68% chance to reach the postseason. The Giants, with a record of 1-3, have a probability of just 4%—the longest odds of all 32 teams.

This is just a statistical projection, based on factors such as current records and strength of remaining schedules. However, the Jets cannot sustain many more substandard losses such as their 10-9 defeat at home on Sunday to the Denver Broncos. They will play the 4-0 Minnesota Vikings this Sunday in London, England (9:30 a.m. kickoff, NFL Network), followed by a key matchup at MetLife Stadium on Monday, Oct. 14, with the Buffalo Bills, who lead the AFC East at 3-1.

The Jets are the most pressing threat to the Bills in the division, but had an inexcusably lackluster showing against the Broncos, who had minus-7 yards passing in the first half with rookie quarterback Bo Nix guiding the offense. The Jets were devoid of offensive juice after the unit displayed a

promising four quarters in their previous game, with quarterback Aaron Rodgers and company doing whatever they wanted in knocking off the New England Patriots

24-3 in New Jersey in Week 3.

After rushing for 133 yards versus the Patriots, the Jets only mustered 64 on the ground against Denver. Rodgers was

sacked five times and hit 14, and the offense had five costly pre-snap penalties.

“Our operation had been good throughout camp and the first three weeks of the season,” said Jets head coach Robert Saleh on Monday. “There are things that as a coaching staff we can definitely make better for the players.”

The Giants began last season 1-5 and have a difficult road game on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks, who will be ornery after being devoured by the Detroit Lions 42-29 on the road on Monday. The Giants will be back on the field after falling 20-15 at MetLife to the Dallas Cowboys last Thursday. A sense of urgency should be permeating head coach Brian Daboll’s team because the game is essentially a must-win to maintain any semblance of having a competitive season.

Giants wide receiver Darius Slayton put a hopeful spin on the Giants’ circumstances and outlook as they approach a pivotal juncture. “…It’s a long year. I mean, four games is…a quarter of the year,” Slayton said on Monday. “Got a lot more football to play and ultimately, if we play better going forward, we’ll get different results, and you’ll look up and we’ll be where we want to be.”

A loss this weekend would make that possible ascent highly improbable.

New season, new faces, heightened expectations for the New York Knicks

By JAIME C. HARRIS

AmNews Sports Editor

With success comes high expectations. Last season, the Knicks made a valiant journey to the Eastern Conference semifinals, losing 4-3 to the Indiana Pacers, finally succumbing to a rash of injuries in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. The 130-109 defeat didn’t feel as much as the finality as it did the end of the beginning, a period in which the Knicks will be a title contender for at least a three-or four-year window. Much can happen to change the course of their potential, but as of today it is trending upward, resting on a sturdy foundation built by a front office staff headed by team president Leon Rose. Across the NBA, Monday was Media Day as the league’s preseason schedule starts this week. The Knicks held their presser at their training facility in Greenburgh, Westchester County.

his professional and personal relationships with Randle, and his former Villanova college roommate and teammate DiVincenzo.

“That was definitely tough,” he reflected on the trio parting ways. “Thankful that Julius welcomed me with open arms here. That news, it was crazy. I’m really thankful for them, their friendships and everything, and what they brought to the team. Really thankful I got to get a good relationship with Julius and the memories we made together was really fun.

“And Donte, he was a groomsman in my wedding, so that should tell you everything you need to know about our relationship.”

The NBA community and basketball world at large is mourning Hall of Fame center Dikembe Mutombo, who died on Monday from brain cancer. Mutombo played collegiately at Georgetown for the late, legendary coach, John Thompson, and 19 years in the NBA.

Before last weekend, the Knicks’ most prominent offseason addition was forward Mikal Bridges, acquired in a trade with the Brooklyn Nets. Then, late Friday, the Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves agreed to a deal to bring Edison, New Jersey native and four-time NBA All-Star forward/center Karl-Anthony Towns into the fold in exchange for three-time AllStar forward Julius Randle, guard Donte DiVincenzo and a 2025 top-13 protected first round draft pick.

zation could explicitly comment publicly on the weighty transaction.

As of AmNews press time and Knicks media day the trade had not been officially finalized so no one in the Knicks organi-

“Who’s Karl? I have no idea who that is,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson joked when asked about Towns.

He was more serious when discussing

He was literally and figuratively one of sport’s towering statesmen and global ambassadors. The 7’2” Mutombo’s philanthropic endeavors included building the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital, named after his late mother, who passed away in 1997. Since opening in 2007 in his native Republic of the Congo in Africa, the hospital has served over one million people.

Jets head coach Robert Saleh bears watches team take a disappointing 10-9 loss to Denver Broncos at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)

Karl-Anthony Towns, pictured playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves against the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs last May, could be the missing piece to complete a Knicks championship squad. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

SPORTS Knicks legends and NBA commissioner gather for Earl Monroe school groundbreaking

Basketball luminaries come together for the groundbreaking

Earl

New Renaissance Basketball Charter School

By DERREL JOHNSON

Special

to the AmNews

Legends and luminaries from the basketball world recently united in the south Bronx for a groundbreaking ceremony of the Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball Charter School at 647 Elton Avenue (just north of 149th Street and Third Avenue).

Speakers included NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, New York Knicks Head Coach Tom Thibodeau, three-time NBA All-Star power forward Julius Randle, NBA Hall of Famer and Knicks icon Walt Clyde Fra-

zier, and the man after whom the school is named: NBA Hall of Famer and Knicks great Earl Monroe.

“It is such a great moment for us here— first of all, to see you guys out there to welcome this new school,” Monroe said to the audience, which included students from the class of 2025, who will be the school’s first graduating class. “It’s been a long time in planning and it’s something that we are all very, very proud of.”

Speaking about the significance of the occasion, Silver said: “What this building and what this school represents are all incredible opportunities that stem from the game

of basketball. We all know about the great players who played in the NBA and who are now playing in the WNBA, and many of those great players are here with me today. And of course, we wouldn’t have the game without them, but what gets lost sometimes are all the careers that stem from this game of basketball. For every single player in the NBA or WNBA, it creates hundreds of jobs in this basketball ecosystem.”

A student from the graduating class thanked Randle for helping to raise $1.3 million for the school. The gymnasium will be called “the Julius Randle All-Star Court.”

Randle thanked the Knicks organization

and his “big brothers” in the organization for being there, notably John Starks, Allan Houston, Tim Thomas, Frazier, and Monroe. Randle also addressed the students. “None of this works without you guys putting in the work,” he said. “You guys have to show up to class. You guys have to absorb the knowledge. You have to listen.

”It doesn’t matter about the opportunity. The opportunities come and go, but you guys have taken advantage of that and put the work in every day, so I want to say ‘thank you, guys.’ I’m extremely proud of you guys and I’m just excited to see where this continues to go.”

LaGuardia Community College women’s volleyball is part of its athletic rebirth

By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews

After shutting down its athletic program for several years, LaGuardia Community College in Queens is again feeling the rush of excitement that sports generate. Student-athletes have a sense of purpose and the community is enjoying watching the various sports develop.

Athletic Director Andrew Walker, a Queens native who previously worked in athletic administration at Long Island University, was working as a guidance counselor at Rising Ground, a residential treatment center in Yonkers, when he received the call about being part of the rebirth of athletics at LaGuardia. Intrigued by getting back into the college sports scene, he took on the challenge.

“I envisioned [college sports] as my last stop in my working career,” said Walker. “LaGuardia President Kenneth Adams asked if I could help him reinvigorate the once very popular LaGuardia men’s and women’s basketball teams.”

The basketball teams returned for the 2022-23 academic year. This fall brought the debut of women’s volleyball. LaGuardia also offers men’s soccer, and men’s and women’s cross country. Walker appreciates providing opportunities to local talent. “It was something of a chore, but a chore of enduring happiness and wanting to introduce sports back to Long Island City and LaGuardia Community College,” he said.

While community colleges have many older students, most of the student-athletes are coming to LaGuardia right out of high school and want to continue competing. “Basketball, soccer ,and volleyball are very popular sports in the New York City high school PSAL [Public Schools Athletic League] system,” said Walker.

“They want to be a part of something.”

Walker is aware that some talented stu-

dent-athletes aren’t recruited out of high school and are looking for a chance to showcase their talents; they could garner the attention of a four-year college while at LaGuardia. “It’s been in my blood for years and years after my professional playing career [Walker played basketball in the NBA and overseas] to work with this type of population,” he said. “I’m motivated to give back to

communities, especially this community.” Bringing volleyball to LaGuardia has been well received. “The women, their hunger and team environment, we’ve created something special here,” said Walker. “I’m so proud of our coaches and student-athletes, how hard they work and how together they stand. … Kudos go to the kids wanting to be out there and be a part of something special here.”

LaGuardia Community College athletics offers women’s volleyball as one of its key programs. (LaGuardia Community College Athletics photos)

of

Monroe

in the Bronx. (Bill Moore photos)

(R) Earl Monroe with NBA Commissioner (L) Adam Silver.

Sports

The Mets and Yankees energize New York with postseason bids

By RUDY ROBINSON Special to the AmNews

It’s baseball heaven for New York Mets and New York Yankees fans as both teams made the postseason. But the expectations for the teams entering this season were vastly different.

The Yankees were a betting favorite to reach the World Series while the Mets were considered to be rebuilding and a longshot playoff contender. But here we are, in the first week of October, and the Mets began their best-of-three series in Milwaukee with the NL Central division champion Brewers on Tuesday. The Yankees will open their playoff run at home on Saturday with the opponent yet to be determined at AmNews press time.

Both New York ball clubs battled division rivals over the past week, the Mets facing NL East foe, the Atlanta Braves, for three games, including a dramatic road doubleheader on Monday, and the Yankees hosting the Baltimore Orioles in the Bronx for three, claiming the AL East

title with a 10-1 win last Thursday.

The Mets’ thrilling 8-7 come from behind win versus the Braves Monday afternoon in Game 1 of the aforementioned doubleheader earned them a wild card berth.

A two-run home run by shortstop Francisco Lindor in the top of the ninth clinched the game and was

necessary after Mets relief pitcher Edwin Diaz blew a three-run lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. However, after the Mets regained the lead, Diaz closed the door on the Braves, throwing 40 pitches to pick up the save.

A team meeting called by Lindor in May and personnel adjustments

made during the season by manager Carlos Mendoza, who should receive heavy consideration for NL Manager of the Year in his first season guiding the Mets, was key in the team becoming one of just four teams since 1970 to make the playoffs following an 0-5 start. They ended with a mark of 89-73.

The Brewers, which were 93-69, defeated the Mets five of six games during the regular season, including winning two of the three this past weekend in Milwaukee. Speed was a decisive factor. The Brewers were successful on all 17 stolen base attempts against the Mets in their six games prior to the playoffs.

The Yankees won their division with a 94-68 record finishing three games ahead of the Orioles. Led by center fielder Aaron Judge, the likely American League MVP after topping Major League Baseball in home runs (58), runs batted in (144). walks (133) and OPS (1.159), as well as being second in total bases (392), third in batting average (.322) and fourth in runs scored (122). Similarly, right fielder Juan Soto had an MVP-cal-

iber campaign with 41 home runs (fourth) 109 runs batted in (sixth) and 129 walks, second to Judge.

Infielder/outfielder Jazz Chisholm’s acquisition in July in a trade with the Miami Marlins has solidified the lineup and shored up the defense with his play at third base. Second baseman Gleyber Torres has performed well at the top of the lineup since being inserted there in early August. His production at the plate could shift sway the outcomes of games.

The Yankees pitching, at times inconsistent during the regular season, will be tested. A critical component is the Yankees bullpen, where Luke Weaver has seemingly replaced the embattled Clay Holmes as the closer.

The Yankees have not won a World Series since 2009. The Mets’ drought has been much longer as their last championship was 1986. The teams’ respective fan bases are starved for a parade down Lower Manhattan’s Canyon of Heroes, where New York championship winners are celebrated.

Electrifying play gives the New York Liberty a 2–0 lead in WNBA semifinals

By LOIS ELFMAN

Special to the AmNews

With 24 points, nine rebounds and five assists, New York Liberty point guard Sabrina Ionescu was the dominant figure in her team’s 88–84 win over the twotime defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces on Tuesday night at the Barclays Center in Game 2 of their best-of-five semifinals series. The Liberty will try to earn back-to-back trips to the WNBA Finals for the first time in 24 years when they face the Aces in Game

3 tomorrow night in Las Vegas.

In the other semifinals, the Connecticut Sun and Minnesota Lynx are tied at 1-1 with Game

3 tomorrow evening at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.

“We did what we were supposed to do, which was protect home court and win two at home,” said Ionescu. “But we didn’t come to just win two games at home and

then be satisfied. … We made plays when we needed to. We made big plays. We made big shots after big shots, and we continued to believe in one another, continued to stick together and grinded out a really good win.”

The WNBA’s No. 1 overall seed Liberty, who were 32-8 during the regular season, trailed the Aces by 27-22 after the first quarter but controlled the second and outscored the Aces 24-13 to take a 46-40 lead into halftime. They were up 69-62 after three quarters and held off the persistent Aces for the win.

If the Aces are to comeback and defeat the Liberty in this series, it would be a historic feat as no team has ever overcome a 2-0 hole to win a bestof-five postseason series in the league’s history.

“It’s a series for a reason, there’s no championship won off two wins,” maintained Aces forward Alysha Clark. “I’ve had a lot of

playoff experience where I’ve been up 2-0, down 2-0. The series is not over.”

The Liberty defeated the Aces 87–77 in Game 1 on Sunday in Brooklyn, which was the mostviewed WNBA semifinal game in 22 years, with 929,000 fans tuning in to ABC. It shows that the league can draw large audiences even without Caitlin Clark, who has increased the WNBA’s popularity substantially. In game 1, Breanna Stewart led all scorers with 34 points. Jonquel Jones had 13 points and 12 rebounds. Ionescu contributed 21 points and five assists.

Postseason honors continue to be announced. Connecticut Sun guard-forward DiJonai Carrington was named 2024 Kia WNBA Most Improved Player. Unfortunately, the honor came at the same time as threats of violence against Carrington following an on-court collision with Caitlin Clark when the Sun faced

the Indiana Fever during the first round of the playoffs. Veteran players say they have never before experienced this level of racist commentary, and everyone including Clark has called for it to stop.

Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier was named 2024 Kia Defensive Player of the Year. Collier headlines the All Defensive First Team, which includes Stewart. Jones was named to the All Defensive Second Team. Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve was named both WNBA Coach of the Year and WNBA Basketball Executive of the Year. She is the first person to win the Coach honor four times.

New York Liberty point guard

Sabrina Ionescu rises for a jumper on Tuesday night in her team’s 8884 win over the Las Vegas Aces in Game 2 of their WNBA semifinals matchup in Brooklyn. (Brandon Todd/New York Liberty)

Sports are significant part of fabric of HBCU culture.

The Mets celebrated winning an NL wild card berth in Atlanta on Monday. (AP Photo Jason Allen)

Jahliel Thurman (right), creator of HBCU 101, and guests discuss aspects of Black college life. (HBCU 101 photos)