On Thursday evening, a multi-ethnic audience attended memorial services at Harlem’s Riverside Church (81 Claremont Avenue) for Brother Ralph Poynter, a longtime activist, educator, and private investigator who, with his wife, attorney Lynne Stewart, shared a vast knowledge and wisdom of Black philosophies with the working-class community, oftentimes at low, or no, cost.
Poynter was affiliated with Malcolm X’s secular group, the Organization of Afro American Unity, in the 1960s, regularly attending their weekly meetings at the Audubon Ballroom. He also was a teacher at Harlem’s P.S. 175, and continued teaching years after Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965.
Poynter died on December 25 but tributes were withheld until what would have been his 90th bornday of March 21. The memorial was hosted and organized by his colleague, Sister Betty Davis. “He asked for us to pick up the work,” she noted in her remarks.
Davis also discussed how Poynter worked remotely even in his final days, continuing his education work online from his hospital bed. She echoed his sentiments about his constant advocacy by any means: “There’s nothing more revolutionary than teaching the truth about our liberation,” she said.
Members from all branches of the grassroots community also paid homage, including members of the Black Panthers, Young Lords, Philadelphia’s MOVE, and more.
K.O.S. & Effect 5 Allah highlighted Poynter’s work as a private detective, notably during the case of Larry Davis, a Bronx man whose claims of self-defense during a 1986 shootout with New York police officers were initially rejected. “Mr. Poynter’s investigation during Larry Davis’s case established that the police shot first, thereby proving that he shot six cops in self-defense, and that helped Larry get acquitted,” he said.
Poynter’s son Kevin fondly reflected that his father “was selfless to the community. Even in (the) ICU, he was determined. Make his sacrifices worth something and remember those behind bars.”
Paula McCrae, whom Poynter taught in fifth grade, explained how he inspired her to become an educator as well as an activist. “I’m so thankful he kept us off the streets. He was serious and didn’t play, but was always gentle. He introduced us to African culture,” she said. “Mr. Poynter’s legacy is that he was a lifelong teacher and a leader. He taught us that we were all leaders in our own right, and we must speak up for what is right.”
Omali Yeshitela, chair of the African People’s Socialist Party, said that Poynter was “an antidote to the domestic colonialism that we experience here in this settled colony called the United States.” More boisterous remarks followed from New York City Councilman Charles Barron, who chanted “Black Power” before recognizing Poynter as “the consummate revolutionary.”
Poynter’s and Betty Davis’s goddaughter Sheryl recited a poem dedicated to him entitled “Let us be the light that we want to see in the world,” and added, “They poured into me (as a teen), and as a result, they helped me find my purpose.”
To watch a recorded tribute to Poynter, go to