Brooklyn Keeps on Taking It
The Brooklyn CORE folks were generally unsuccessful in their bids to gain political office. Brooklyn CORE chairman Sam Pinn ran for State Senator twice, Job Mashariki ran for Congress and his older brother Jitu Weusi ran for state senator, city councilman, and governor. They all lost as did Marland Jeffries in his 1978 bid for state assemblyman. His son, Hakeem Jeffries, however would succeed years later in being elected as Brooklyn's current Congressman.(60)

Things went better for them working behind the scenes. Brooklyn CORE chairman Sonny Carson was the coordinator for the NY State Black Political Assembly, a local branch of the NBPC. Jitu Weusi's experience with third party politics led to him organizing for Reverend Al Sharpton's Senatorial campaign in 1992 and for Jesse Jackson's two presidential elections bids.(61)

Weusi and Carson are most well known for being hired to do voter registration work for David Dinkins campaign to become the first Black mayor of NYC. Both were just as quickly forced to resign over a controversy created by the opponent, Rudy Guiliani, who labeled statements both men made during the community control demonstrations during the late 1960's as anti-semitic.(62)

They had more success when it came to education, but what the members of Brooklyn CORE were most successful at was institution building and street activism. Sam Pinn's version of Brooklyn CORE for example created more that a dozen senior centers, most of which still exist to this day such as the Fort Green Senior Center. These centers also house a number of day care and after school programs. Pinn was also one of the first CORE members to win a seat on a community school board and eventually became its chairman.(63)

Carson, Weusi, along with his younger brother Job Mashariki all played pivotal roles in the creation of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, a school they originally planned on naming after Malcolm X. Weusi was especially successful at creating a pre-collegiate independent Black school (see next section below).(64)

It should be noted that Sonny Carson like Malcolm X was formerly a street criminal who became an activist after having done time in prison. Carson came into Brooklyn CORE a few years after meeting Malcolm X at Brooklyn CORE's demonstration at SUNY Medical Downstate. Carson went on to form a number of organizations to support his two fisted brand of street activism: the School of Common Sense, the Committee to Honor Black Heroes and the Black Men's Movement Against Crack (BMMAC), 'a direct-action initiative to shut down crack houses during the peak years of the drug epidemic.' It included many former CORE people like Harlem CORE's Donald Elfe, Jim 'Seitu' Dyson, Job Mashariki and Carson's former bodyguard Ali Lamont (who was originally brought into Brooklyn CORE by Charles Hynes directly from Temple #7).(65)

BMMAC later combined with members of another group of Black activists, the New York 8, to form the December 12th Movement. Carson served as chairman. Like the National Black United Front founded in 1980 by Jitu Weusi and Sam Pinn among others, it merged Malcolm's nationalism with CORE's direct action protest tactics. The December 12th Movement still exists to seek reparations for African Americans in the form of funding for institutions. According to Columbia University's Social Justice Movements website, "Their goal is to take up what they see as Malcolm X's legacy: to bring the United States before a world court to be judged on the issue of slavery and continued violation of black people's human rights. They succeeded in getting the trans-Atlantic slave trade labeled a "Crime Against Humanity" by the United Nations".(66)

Carson was widely villainized as being racist in the press for the boycotts he led against several Korean grocery stores in 1990. University of California professor Dr. Claire Kim argued the boycotts were less an example of Black racism against the Korean community but instead spoke more to the existence of the racial hierarchy of American society.(67)

Abdullah Razzaq (formerly James 67X) however suggested Malcolm X would not have supported the boycotts. Instead he would have suggested Black protesters should have concentrated on opening their own grocery stores.(68)

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>>>> footnotes part 3 <<<<

>>>> footnotes part 4 <<<<