The first Tuesday this month will be recorded with political pioneering nostalgia as significant accomplishments for African-Americans and significantly in the borough of Brooklyn re-wrote history and championed victories for the Black race.
For the first time, Kings County will boast a Black district attorney and simultaneously its first borough president with the triumphant landslide victories of attorney Ken Thompson and former state senator Eric Adams.
Both won decidedly to command their leadership in probably the most diverse borough in New York City. Thompson handily trounced his incumbent opponent Joe Hynes by a margin of 72 percent. And the former cop whipped his rival Republican Elias Weir claiming 89 percent of the final count.
Another first named Brooklyn’s Letitia James as the first public advocate to act as watchdog for citizen rights. She tallied a record 82 percent of voters’ confidence and in the process secured another historic entry to the books.
Also significant is the fact, Gracie Mansion will reflect a more diverse façade with the first Black first-lady Chirlane DeBlasio — whose husband is not — commanding the number one position in New York City. In January, she will become only the second of her race to move into the east-side mansion. Her arrival to the riverfront residence places her behind Joyce Dinkins whose African-American spouse was elected the first Black to be voted to the mayoral position in 1989.
Dinkin’s “gorgeous mosaic” marked a hope for significant change and perhaps racial parity.
De Blasio’s “tale of two cities’ and landslide victory represented a majority support from New York voters of all races, genders, ages, religions, incomes and education levels.
Elected the 109th mayor of New York, he easily defeated Republican Joe Lhota by a margin of 72 percent.
Caribbean, Haitian-American Mathieu Eugene was returned to the City Council winning 86 percent in Brooklyn’s 40th Councilmanic District.
