Five candidates for New York State Attorney General came to central Brooklyn and discussed topics ranging from police policies, predatory lending and the enforcement of community benefits agreements in a debate hosted and sponsored by the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy.

All five of the Democratic Party candidates participated in the event, which was held recently in the Founders Auditorium at Medgar Evers College. The list of candidates included Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen M. Rice as well as Eric R. Dinallo, a former state insurance superintendent, and Sean Coffey, a trial lawyer. 

A number of public policy issues were discussed. For example. the candidates all agreed on the need to pass legislation that would change the way prisoners are counted. They each supported the so-called “Prisoners of the Census Bill,” which would have prisoners counted as residents of the communities where they resided when arrested, rather as residents of the upstate communities where the prisons are located. It is a change, the candidates said, that would bring resources to the state’s urban areas, rather than the rural communities where the prisoners are housed.

The debate was co-sponsored by several other groups: the Vanguard Independent Democratic Association, the Progressive Association for Political Action, the Rosa Parks Democratic Club, the Thomas S. Boyland Democratic Club, New Era Democratic Club, the Progressive Democratic Political Association, and the Unity Democratic Club.  

The debate comes in advance of the hotly contested Sept.14 statewide primary. The contest among the five candidates for the Democratic nomination for attorney general is considered the most competitive in the state because winning that primary is considered tantamount to election in November.   

A number of Brooklyn elected officials attended the event. The debate’s host was Walter T. Mosely, a Democratic district leader, and the moderator was Jonathan P. Hicks, a senior fellow at the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy and a former political writer with The New York Times.

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Debate Featured in NY Times Blog

Photo by C. Zawadi Morris

The five Democratic candidates for attorney general are Eric Dinallo, Richard Brodsky, Kathleen Rice, Sean Coffey and Eric Schneiderman. Walter T. Mosley, District Leader for 57th A.D., also attended and Jonathan P. Hicks moderated.

DBC To Play Major Role in March

In DC for Jobs and Economic Justice 

The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy will play a major role in the planning for the Day of Action, which will be a part of the series of events culminating with a March on Washington for jobs and economic justice. It is an event that seeks to bring together hundreds of thousands of Americans on October 10 in the nation’s capital. The events will is being coordinated by a large coalition of some of the country’s leading civil rights, youth, social justice and labor organizations that are calling for a “Day of Action” to highlight our progressive solutions to the economic crisis.   

“We must march to reclaim the ideals inherent in that part of the Constitution that declares ‘We the People,’” said Roger L. Green, the executive director of the DuBois Bunche Center. “Those of us who struggled and voted for historic change must demonstrate the diverse and progressive character of our movement,” Mr. Green said. “ Our much must demonstrate that the Tea Party has had its day. We represent the ‘We’ Party.’ And we the people represent the future.” 

The events will also include a concert with internationally prominent artists as well as a National Lobby Day, on which activists will visit their representatives in Congress on Capitol Hill or in their district offices. DBC will play a major role in helping to create specific policy recommendations.  

By New York City Councilman James Sanders

New York City Councilman James Sanders Jr., the chairman of the Council’s Civil Service and Labor Committee, offered a strong endorsement of the Thurgood Marshall Plan, a broad proposal created by the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy aimed at targeting assistance and resources at urban centers with the most dramatic need. The plan includes a number of proposals aimed at reducing unemployment in urban areas through job creation initiatives. 

Mr. Sanders, who was previously chairman of the Council’s Economic Development Committee, discussed the Thurgood Marshall Plan on Urban Focus, the weekly radio program produced in conjunction with DBC. His comments were part of a lengthy interview that spanned a number of topics, from economic development to job training priorities for the urban workforce. The entire interview can be heard on this web site, by clicking on the Urban Focus link.

DBC Director Discusses Workforce Development, Thurgood Marshall Plan Before City Council 

Roger Green, the executive director of the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy, appeared recently before the City Council, promoting the workforce development recommendations contained in the Thurgood Marshall Plan, a broad proposal created by DBC and aimed at targeting assistance and resources at urban centers with the most dramatic need. The plan includes a number of proposals aimed at reducing unemployment in urban areas through job creation initiatives.  

Mr. Green spoke before the members of the Council Committee on Civil Service Labor, which is chaired by Councilman James Sanders of Queens, the Committee on Economic Development, which is chaired by Councilman Thomas White of Queens, as well as the Committee on Small Business, which is chaired by Councilwoman Diana Reyna, of Brooklyn.

DBC to Study Community Benefits Agreements

The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy is launching a far reaching review of the various Community Benefits Agreements that have been adopted in urban centers throughout the United States. Roger L. Green, the executive director of DBC, said that the center intends to review the origins of the various Community Benefits Agreements to determine their effectiveness in enhancing minority business and equal employment opportunities.

The review of Community Benefits Agreement will be aligned with the study on non-profit administration which is a major within the Department of Public Administration at Medgar Evers College School of Business.

The DuBois Bunche Center intends to publish its finding in a book that will be released later this year.

The Value of Community Benefits Agreements

By Roger L. Green

On Thursday March 11, 2010 numerous dignitaries and civic leaders gathered at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn to celebrate the groundbreaking for the sports arena for the Nets basketball franchise and the Barkclays Center.

This event was possible because of the historic Community Benefits Agreement that was jointly sponsored by the Forest City Ratner Development Corporation, eight non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) and community based organizations.

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George E. Curry, the veteran journalist, recently attended international AIDS conference in Vienna, where there were glimmers of optimism about curbing the world's crisis in that disease. In his piece he said that the delegates left the conference "optimistic about the possibility of finding a cure for AIDS. They know that a cure may still be years away; the long journey to progress against this three-decades-long restless assault is measured in baby steps, not leaps and bounds."

Read the editorial

Joel Dreyfuss looks critically at the new and highly controversial immigration law that was enacted recently in Arizona. “If you're black and think that state's new immigration law has nothing to do with you, think again,” he writes. “A law that makes people suspects on the basis of their looks should outrage African Americans, even if they are worried about illegal immigration.”

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Syracuse Post-Standard Endorses Bill Promoted by DBC To Alter How New York’s Prisoners are Counted in Census

The Post-Standard in Syracuse, New York, has become the most recent in a long list of supporters of a bill supported by the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy to end the so-called prison-based gerrymandering in New York State.

The bill’s prime sponsors are Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, both Democrats. . The bill would allow prisoners to be counted as part of the population of the areas considered to be their home areas, rather than as residents of the locations of the prisons.

Under the current system, New York State’s nearly 70,000 prisoners are counted in the locations where they are incarcerated, often upstate locations far from the urban communities where they reside. As a result, they are counted as part of the population of those rural communities, a practice that has a significant impact on how state funds are allocated and how voting districts are carved.

Roger Green, the executive director of the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy, has offered the center’s enthusiastic support for a bill now before the Legislature in Albany that would change the method of counting prisoners for the collection of census data

Cuba’s Treatment of it’s Black Citizens Criticized
A group of prominent African Americans, traditionally sympathetic to the Cuban revolution, have for the first time condemned Cuba, demanding Havana stop its "callous disregard'' for black Cubans and declaring that "racism in Cuba . . . must be confronted."
South Africa Plans to Expand HIV Treatment for Babies
The Administration of South African President Jacob Zuma recently announced ambitious new plans for earlier and expanded treatment for HIV-positive babies and pregnant women, a change that could save hundreds of thousands of lives in the nation hardest hit by the virus that causes AIDS.
Is Liberia’s Ruling Party Vulnerable After Loss in Local Election?
In a second round of voting, Geraldine Doe-Sheriff won an upset victory Clemenceau B. Urey, the candidate representing the ruling Unity Party, the party of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. And the winner said that the victory by her party, Congress for Democratic Change’s, was a harbinger for the country’s presidential election in 2011.