Mayor Mamdani used Rev. Al Sharpton’s birthday to praise him not only for his steadfast commitment to justice, his persistence, but as someone he felt is also prescient. The mayor was joined by several elected officials at the National Action Network who took turns lavishing the minister with glowing accolades, although none took the time to delve into his resume like the mayor.
Mamdani recounted an incident back in 1978, long before he was born (his 35th birthday is on Oct. 18), when Sharpton, along with other ministers, asked Mayor Ed Koch for 200,000 summer jobs. Koch told them that wasn’t possible. When the ministers refused to leave the Blue Room, “it took a dozen policemen to get these four men out of City Hall and into a patrol van,” Mamdani said. “Well, the same number of jobs he was calling for nearly 50 years ago is the same number of Black New Yorkers who’ve been pushed out of this city since the year 2000.” What Sharpton asked for back then was not given, and from the current mayor’s vantage point, it was the beginning “of a reverse of a great migration.”
“We are speaking about our neighbors; we are speaking about people who have left this city because it costs too much here to live a dignified life, because opportunity always feels too far away, no matter how many buses you get on or trains you take,” Mamdani said.
He had the full attention of his audience, and continued to use the reverend’s birthday to hammer on some additional points: “So, as we celebrate the Rev’s living legacy … in his life, what I see also is an urgency for all of us to understand our own responsibilities on that path. That is the path for making sure we have the strongest tenants’ rights in the country. That path is ensuring that people can not only afford to rent, but also afford to buy, and that is a path to ensure that a grocery bag is never out of reach for somebody who’s working hard in the city. What I ask is that as we celebrate an icon of this city, and frankly, of this country, we do also by standing up to injustice whenever we see it. When you do so also, by understanding that the reason the Rev. had been able to do so much is that he has also inspired a generation after generation that our place is not simply to watch the rebel. It is to stand alongside him, and thank you for having set the example. Thank you for having set the pace. Now it’s up to the rest of us to catch up.”
We thank the Rev. for giving the mayor an opportunity to touch on some issues with such passionate resolve. What we need is more birthdays for the Rev.
