Major was CORE member during the civil rights movement and a librarian who was part of the insurgent African-American political community that emerged in Brooklyn in the early 1980s [Al Vann, Roger Green, Velmanette Montgomery, Et. Al.] He was State Senator, and defeated a first-class Black Democratic machine hack who later went to jail, Vander Beatty, for the Congressional seat; that pretty much broke the back of the old machine in the African-American community. He was one of a very few Democratic Congressional representatives who was prepared to identify himself as a democratic socialist, and he joined DSA. He is not afraid of taking principled stands that cause political problems for himself, like speaking out against Farrakhan. But what really impressed me was the way in which he and his staff were actively involved in community work, especially around education issues, which is one of his major foci as a member of the House Committee on Labor and Education. He was personally involved when I had to go to court to get an injunction against the Board of Education for bringing in contracters who did all sort of work releasing asbestos in my former high school, and he was extraordinarily supportive for educational ventures in which we were involved. I never ran into another politician who followed through like he does on those issues. On the more humorous side, he likes to write socially conscious "rap songs" and put them in the Congressional Record.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --
-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20010317/34defeb5/attachment.htm>