Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office announced they will hand out $20,000 to up to 10 nonprofits each for employing at-risk youngsters on projects pertaining to gun violence prevention. The developers behind the proposed One45 project at 145th Street and Lenox Avenue withdrew their plans for the site in Harlem just before the land use vote. Harlem hosted a Juneteenth Flag Raising at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Harlem State Office Building on June 6, 2022. Breakdancers from around New York and beyond came together at Bronxlandia to compete in the Red Bull BC One Bronx Cypher, one of the biggest breakdancing competitions with thousands of people vying for spots in the World Final. Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams came to an agreement on a $101 billion dollar city budget for the fiscal year of 2023. Mayor Ras J. Baraka, Gov. Phil Murphy, and partners Shaquille O’Neal and Boraie Development held the topping-off ceremony for 777 McCarter in Newark. At the March for Our Lives rally in Downtown Brooklyn, rallyers called for the passage of comprehensive gun control laws, and in the wake of the recent Buffalo and Ulvade, Texas mass shootings, hundreds of chanting, poster-waving marchers took to the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, June 11. On June 12, Jennifer Hudson joined an elite group of 17 entertainers in the history of Hollywood to become an EGOT. Hudson picked up her final qualifying award at the 2022 Tony Awards as co-producer of “A Strange Loop,” which won Best Musical.
Juneteenth celebration weekend in Yonkers kicked off with Mayor Mike Spano, sculptor Vinnie Bagwell, local artists and community leaders officially unveiling The Enslaved Africans’ Rain Garden along the Yonkers waterfront at 20 Water Grant Street, on June 17. The urban-heritage sculpture garden honors the legacy of enslaved Africans who resided and worked at Philipse Manor Hall in Yonkers. Darius Lee, a 21-year-old son, student and star college basketball player at Houston Baptist University, was killed in an overnight shooting that wounded eight others at a gathering on East 139th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Francia Márquez became Colombia’s first Black, female VP. As reports came out on the eighth death of an incarcerated individual while in Department of Corrections custody, advocates were demanding that the city properly address the “humanitarian crisis” in the jail. Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka hosted a ceremony to re-name Washington Park as Harriet Tubman Square and announced plans to create the Newark Arts and Education District at the square to mark Juneteenth. A deluge of protesters hit the streets in outrage Friday, June 24 after learning that five members of the Supreme Court had ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, a pivotal court case that established a woman’s right to an abortion 50 years ago. New evidence in the lynching of Emmett Till: investigators were able to find a warrant issued 67 years ago for the arrest of Roy Bryant, J.W. Milam, Bryant’s half-brother, and Carolyn Bryant in the kidnapping of Till. City Council convened a joint hearing on education and oversight due to the expected city budget cuts to schools. The teacher’s union that rallied outside of City Hall during the hearings demanded that Mayor Eric Adams “restore the cuts.”