Brooklyn Council Member Al Vann was joined by several elected officials and honored guests at his seventh annual Harriet Tubman Day Celebration on Wednesday, March 10 at Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Boys & Girls High School.
Dionne Mack-Harvin, who went from being a librarian at a Crown Heights branch in 1996 to becoming executive director of the entire Brooklyn Public Library system in 2007, was the keynote speaker.
While celebrating the heroic work of Harriet Tubman, Councilman Vann and others also brought attention to the 2010 Census in an effort to achieve maximum participation and response in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Central Brooklyn, which had one of the worst undercounts in the country for the 2000 Census.
In 2003, Governor George Pataki signed legislation by Assemblyman Arthur Eve and State Senator Michael Nozzolio establishing March 10 as Harriet Tubman Day. On March 10, 2005, Councilman Vann hosted an outdoor ceremony attended by hundreds in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Fulton Street to co-name the main Brooklyn thoroughfare after the late heroine.