William “Bill” Morris Perkins’ life is a true Harlem tale, going from humble beginnings to an activist and finally an elected official. So on Oct. 4, his home village saw fit to celebrate his life and legacy by naming a street for him in an emotional ceremony.
State Senator Cordell Cleare, who served as Perkins’ chief of staff for 19 years, and City Councilmember Yusef Salaam hosted the unveiling ceremony for family, friends, former staff, and Harlem community members at Duke Ellington Circle. During the event, they unveiled a new street sign which read, ‘The Honorable Bill Perkins Way,’ placed at the corner of 5th Avenue and 110th Street.
“I said I would never work for an elected official and turned my nose up at it and everything. But this was no ordinary elected official. This was someone who had the heart of the people in his heart. I don’t regret one single day of service,” said Cleare. She and Perkins had initially met during her environmental crusade as a tenant leader to end lead poisoning in the city after her own son’s exposure to it in the 1990s.
Perkins was born in Harlem in 1949. He was raised by his mother, Helen, alongside his three brothers. She was a huge driving force behind his education, determined to instill in him the value of hard work. But it was really the fight to defend his neighbors from deplorable safety conditions after a massive fire ripped through his apartment building at Schomburg Plaza (The Heritage) in 1987 that led to his life as a community activist, tenant leader, and eventually, an elected official.
“Bill got [Division of Housing and Community Renewal] DHCR to publicly acknowledge that there was faulty work and the building sued the architects and the contractors responsible for the building’s construction,” said Valerie Jo Bradley, co-founder and president of Save Harlem Now!, recalling the incident. “Perkins was a leader for the people. He spent his life advocating for the people of Harlem to be treated with decency and respect.”
Perkins was first elected as the councilmember for District 9 from 1997 to 2005, then as the State Senator of the 30th District from 2006 until 2017. He returned to the city council again in 2017 and served until 2020. Perkins struggled with dementia before his passing at the age of 74 in 2023.
“We are not simply renaming a street,” said Dr. Lena Greene, Perkins’ niece. “We are writing another chapter into the living, breathing history of our loving community of Harlem, a chapter named after someone whose service, integrity, and love for Harlem, and this great city of New York, will echo through these blocks long after the applause fades.”
Bill Moore photos
“His work was on behalf of others and he never approached it as work. He approached it as a duty, a duty to give back to others who suffered the same hardships as he suffered right here in Harlem,” said William “Dub” Perkins Jr., his son.
Perkins kept tenant, civil rights, and environmental issues at the forefront throughout his career. He authored and championed groundbreaking legislation, including the Childhood Lead Paint Poisoning Prevention Act of 2004. He advanced public health protections by fighting asthma, infant and maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, and colon cancer, establishing early detection programs in city hospitals.
He famously had a rivalry with the city’s rats, dubbing the infestation a serious crisis. While at the Senate, he demanded accountability and transparency in public authorities, like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), and passed legislation to reduce sulfur in heating oil, improving air quality, and reducing acid rain.
Pamela Green-Perkins, who was married to the council member for 24 years, said, “I am so delighted that Bill’s collective body of work is being honored,” in a statement. “I am eternally grateful to Councilmember Salaam for passing the legislation. It is fortuitous that, based on the relationship with the Exonerated Five, and Yusef in particular, it is Councilmember Salaam who authored this renaming.”
Salaam was among the Black and Brown teenagers wrongly accused and convicted in the Central Park Five jogger case in 1989. Perkins was the first, and as many attested to, at times the only elected official who defended them after their arrests and stood with them beyond their exonerations in 2002. He withstood death threats and harassment from inside and outside the Harlem community for doing so. He also organized and strategized to get settlements for members of the five from the city after their overturned convictions.
“Bill Perkins stood up for us,” said Salaam, marveling at the role that he now has in pushing through the legislation to honor his defender. “This is who he was, always standing with his fist up to the oppression that we so needed to stamp out. Bill Perkins reminded us that we could stand in the gap. We could be an interrupter. We could be a positive influence.”
Three members of the five (Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, and Korey Wise) also attended the unveiling ceremony. Some of them were Perkins’ neighbors at Schomburg and grew up with his family.
“We became a family. We became a unit. We held each other down. The Exonerated Five wasn’t about just us; it was about the families and Harlem,” said Santana, a community activist and entrepreneur. “Thank you Pam and the Perkins family for sharing your dad and husband with us. We know that it was a lot with this case. But we were grateful that somebody from our community was there.”
“Bill Perkins aka Harlem, salute. May he rest in power,” said Wise, a mentor and member at the National Action Network (NAN).
Other Harlem community activists, like co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice Peggy Shepard and Dec 12th Movement Chairperson Omowale Clay, spoke at the renaming ceremony.
“Every major incident that happened in this city, if not the country, he was there. A lot of people are praising Barack Obama, but Bill was with Barack when a lot of folks were hiding and did not want to stand with him,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “He said, ‘There is no way we’re going to have a qualified Black man run for president and I’m going to be sitting on the sidelines.’”
Other elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, Assemblymember Al Taylor, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, also attended and gave remarks at the renaming ceremony.
“Bill went against the grain,” said Espaillat. He announced that he would sponsor a 5k run in 2026 to honor Perkins’ love for walking and running around the district.