Diaspora meeting with our historic pioneers - Mayor Dinkins Attends

Diaspora meeting with our historic pioneers
Herb Boyd | New York Amsterdam News | 7/19/2018

It was a special day in Harlem, and 50 was the magic number June 25 when the same number of notable New Yorkers and our historic pioneers were respectfully invited by co-hosts, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Lloyd Williams, to a 50th anniversary breakfast summit of memory and celebration. It has been a long time since Sylvia’s Restaurant was packed with such a coterie of dignitaries, each reflecting on personal and collective experiences at the core of New York’s urban history.

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A gallery of stunned and amused expressions was often seen as a rosary of memories spilled from the participants—they learned by turns a little bit more about the political ascendance of former NYC Mayor David Dinkins, former U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, civil rights legend Hazel Dukes, former NYS Gov. David Paterson and how former NYS Comptroller H. Carl McCall handled more than $120 billion in the pension fund as the state’s first African-American comptroller.

The two hours allocated were well spent and went by quickly. The comments and remarks from the elders—Rangel, Dinkins, Dukes, McCall and Paterson—were representative of Diaspora pioneers in attendance from Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan. The room was bubbling over with history, most of it informative, humorous an

d inspirational, particularly for some of the younger members in the audience.

And the remarks combined all of the above values as when Dinkins, recalling the importance of the people who helped him to become the city’s first Black mayor, cited a piece of folklore about how a turtle at the top of a 10-foot pole got there. “He certainly didn’t get there by himself,” Dinkins quipped. When asked how he felt about becoming the city’s first Black mayor, he said, “If you like public service, there’s nothing like being the mayor of New York City.”

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