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When Even a Black-Led City Government Fails a Black Police Officer: How §207-c Is Weaponized by Mike Hannon

Black Westchester
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When Even a Black-Led City Government Fails a Black Police Officer: How §207-c Is Weaponized by Mike Hannon

By Michael Hannon, Retired White Plains Police Officer

New York General Municipal Law § 207-c was enacted to protect police officers and firefighters who are injured or become ill in the line of duty. It provides full salary continuation, medical coverage, and, where appropriate, light-duty assignments when an officer can no longer perform full police functions due to a service-related condition. The purpose of the law is straightforward. The outcomes we are seeing are not.

Among police officers, there is a term everyone understands: “three-quarters.” It refers to tax-free disability pensions awarded to officers who are injured in the performance of duty and can no longer return to work. Officers awarded accidental disability typically receive approximately 75 percent of their final average salary. Everyone in law enforcement knows the system exists. What many do not understand is how unevenly it is applied.

I learned that the hard way.

I am a retired White Plains Police Officer who was seriously injured in the line of duty. I expected my department, City Hall, and my union to do what the law requires. Instead, I encountered delay, obstruction, and silence. The PBA failed to guide or assist me with my disability retirement paperwork. City Hall avoided responsibility. I ultimately paid more than thirty-seven thousand dollars in legal fees and waited nearly ten years before standing before the State Supreme Court in Albany to receive justice.

That experience forced me to pay attention—not just to my own case, but to a pattern I have watched unfold across Westchester County.

Over the years, I observed white officers return to whole duty, work overtime to increase retirement calculations, and then go back out as “injured” to receive §207-c benefits—without resistance from leadership. I witnessed officers with pre-existing injuries receive “three-quarters” based on sympathy or internal support. These cases moved smoothly, quietly, and efficiently.

Black officers did not receive the same treatment.

They were questioned, delayed, accused of malingering, or forced to navigate procedural hurdles. What makes this pattern especially troubling is that it is now clearly visible in Mount Vernon, a city long regarded as a Black-led police department, with historically high numbers of Black officers, Black supervisors, Black commissioners, and Black mayors. Many Black officers believed Mount Vernon would be different.

I watched Detective Montika Jones face what many within law enforcement viewed as political retaliation. Her §207-c case was initially approved, and she received the medical operations she needed under that approval. But after her husband spoke out publicly against the administration, everything changed.

Her previously approved §207-c claim—accepted under the prior administration—was suddenly recharacterized as fraudulent. The city then sought her termination and dragged the matter out for nearly a year. The same law that was meant to protect her was instead weaponized and used as leverage against her.

I watched the department turn its back on Sergeant Bowvell, who turned over 28 hours of recorded tapes documenting officers witnessing white officers violate the rights of Black residents. Those tapes should have triggered investigations, accountability, and discipline. Instead, no one was charged, no one was fired, and no meaningful action was taken. The message was unmistakable: exposing misconduct would not be protected.

And now I am watching what is happening to Officer Derek Williams.

Officer Williams is a 19-year veteran who contracted COVID-19 on the job in 2020. His condition later progressed into end-stage kidney failure requiring daily dialysis. Despite being medically cleared for desk duty and being just six months away from qualifying for a reduced pension, he was left unprotected.

Under §207-c, there is a clear legal pathway for officers whose illness is incurred while performing duty. While COVID-related long-term complications do not carry an automatic presumption, the law allows for claims to be evaluated through formal application and medical evidence.

In Officer Williams’ case, that process was never initiated.

No §207-c application. No light-duty request. No disability retirement paperwork. No workers’ compensation claim. No formal accommodation request. The city repeatedly cited the absence of filings to classify his illness as non-job-related and initiate termination proceedings.

Across these cases—Jones, Bowvell, and Williams—the same law firm appears advising the PBA while Black officers are delayed, denied, or pushed toward separation. I am not alleging conspiracy. I am pointing to outcomes that are known, reported, and even in prior lawsuits. When the same actors appear, and the results are consistently the same, reasonable people are entitled to ask questions.

From a Black law enforcement perspective, the pattern is impossible to ignore. White officers are protected. Black officers are scrutinized, delayed, and shunned—even in a Black-led city government. Representation at the top has not translated into protection on the ground.

This is not an indictment of §207-c itself, nor a blanket accusation against the Mount Vernon city government or the PBA. The law functions as intended when it is applied honestly and without bias. The concern is how selective enforcement, inaction, and procedural delay can be weaponized against certain officers.

If this can happen in Mount Vernon, a city long seen as a symbol of Black leadership in policing, what hope is there for Black officers across Westchester County—or across New York State?

On Wednesday, January 28, I stand in solidarity with Officer Derek Williams at Mount Vernon City Hall. Favoritism, retaliation, and neglect must end.

Justice should not depend on politics, personalities, or public pressure. I know what it means to wait a decade for justice.

Officer Williams should not have to.

When Black History Becomes Clickbait: The Misuse of the Black Panther Name in the ICE Debate

DAMON K JONES
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When Black History Becomes Clickbait: The Misuse of the Black Panther Name in the ICE Debate

Everyone knows the original Black Panther Party no longer exists as a national organization. That fact is not in dispute. The real question is not whether the Panthers still exist, but who has the authority to invoke their name — and for what purpose.

In recent weeks, social media has been flooded with posts and images suggesting that “the Black Panther Party” is standing up against ICE. The imagery is deliberate: black berets, firearms, street confrontations, and emotionally charged rhetoric designed to evoke one of the most potent symbols in Black political history.

But implication is not legitimacy.

The public face of this modern group is a man named Paul Birdsong, who has been giving interviews and public statements on behalf of what he describes as a new or revived Black Panther organization. Whatever one thinks of his personal views, the central fact remains unchanged: this is not the original Black Panther Party, and Birdsong does not speak for it.

More importantly, there is no formal, official statement from Fred Hampton Jr. establishing an organizational position on ICE connected to these protests. None. That distinction matters. In Black political history, lineage and accountability are not symbolic concerns — they are the difference between continuity and imitation.

The public should not confuse these individuals or statements with the original Black Panther Party, its mission, or its historical leadership.

Fred Hampton Jr., the son of slain Black Panther leader Chairman Fred Hampton, carries a direct historical lineage to the original Black Panther Party through bloodline, lived experience, and continued political work. As a longtime activist and organizer associated with the Prisoners of Conscience Committee and the Black Panther Party Cubs, Hampton Jr. has consistently emphasized discipline, political education, and community accountability over symbolism or spectacle. His work has focused on preserving the historical integrity of the Panther legacy while addressing state violence, political imprisonment, and systemic injustice through organized, structured activism. That lineage matters, because the Black Panther Party was never an aesthetic or a loose identity — it was a disciplined political movement. When the Panther name is invoked without clear authorization or continuity from those directly connected to that legacy, it raises serious questions about legitimacy, responsibility, and historical accuracy.

If these actions and statements are not coming from Fred Hampton Jr. or organizations directly tied to the Panther legacy through him, then what we are witnessing is not historical continuity. It is branding.

The original Black Panther Party was not built on optics. It was built on outcomes. The Panthers organized survival programs that fed children, provided health clinics, educated communities, and established political discipline. Institutional work, internal rules, and accountability structures matched their public posture. Every action was connected to a broader strategy.

What we see today is symbolism without structure.

Rifles without programs.

Imagery without infrastructure.

Attention without responsibility.

There is a difference between being inspired by the Panthers and claiming to represent them. Inspiration is honest. Representation requires authorization, discipline, and results. When those elements are absent, the use of the Panther name misleads the public and dilutes the historical mission it claims to honor.

There is also a strategic danger in this kind of performative militancy. The original Panthers understood state power intimately. They understood surveillance, infiltration, and legal traps. They lived through COINTELPRO. They knew that careless symbolism gives the state a pretext, not accountability.

Armed spectacle without discipline does not protect Black communities. It exposes them.

History shows that movements without structure are the easiest to discredit, disrupt, and destroy. The Panthers knew this, which is why they emphasized political education, chain of command, and community legitimacy — not viral theatrics.

This matters because Black communities are facing real, measurable crises: violence, housing displacement, failing schools, economic stagnation, and declining health outcomes. These problems are not solved through borrowed imagery or social media performance. They are solved through leadership, institution-building, and disciplined political strategy.

The misuse of the Black Panther name fits a broader pattern in Black politics today: symbolism replacing strategy, emotion replacing outcomes, and history being treated as aesthetic rather than responsibility. When that happens, clarity is lost — and the people pay the price.

Black history is not a costume.

Black struggle is not content.

And the Black Panther legacy is not a marketing tool.

Protecting that legacy is not about nostalgia. It is about responsibility. If a position does not come with recognized leadership, accountability, and a mission rooted in the original purpose of the Panthers, then it should be described honestly for what it is: a new group using an old name — not the continuation of a historic movement.

Respecting our history means defending it from misuse, even when the misuse comes wrapped in familiar colors, raised fists, and powerful rhetoric.

The Carnegie House Ruling: A Warning Shot for Black Homeowners in New York

DAMON K JONES
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The Carnegie House Ruling: A Warning Shot for Black Homeowners in New York

The recent court decision upholding a 450 percent ground-rent increase at Manhattan’s Carnegie House should concern every Black homeowner, housing advocate, and elected official in New York State—especially in Westchester County.

Not because Carnegie House is unique.
But because it isn’t.

This case did not hinge on race, politics, or ideology. It hinged on contracts, land values, and a legal system that enforces agreements exactly as written—regardless of the damage those agreements cause decades later.

And that is precisely why this ruling matters.

Carnegie House is a cooperative building where residents own their apartments but do not own the land beneath them. Instead, the building sits on a long-term ground lease. When that lease reset, arbitrators recalculated the rent based on current land values. The result: ground rent jumped from roughly $4 million a year to more than $24 million—a 450 percent increase. Courts upheld it.

The message was simple and brutal:
If the contract allows it, the increase stands—even if it financially devastates homeowners.

This ruling now serves as legal reinforcement for landowners across New York who hold similar ground leases. It tells them that dramatic increases tied to market land values are enforceable, arbitration decisions are difficult to overturn, and claims of unfairness or hardship carry little weight against clear contractual language.

This should alarm Black communities in Westchester for a specific reason.

Historically, Black homeownership in this county has been concentrated in co-ops and condominiums, not fee-simple single-family homes. Many of those co-ops were marketed as “affordable ownership” without adequately explaining the long-term risks of ground leases. Buyers were told they were homeowners. In reality, many were buying into financial arrangements they did not control and could not renegotiate.

The outcome was predictable.

When land values rise—especially in high-demand regions like New York—those who own the land capture the upside. Those who only own the structure absorb the cost. Courts will not intervene to save buyers from bad math or bad clauses signed decades earlier.

This is not displacement by eviction.
It is displacement by accounting.

And unlike traditional gentrification narratives, this kind of loss does not involve developers knocking on doors or police executing removals. It happens quietly—through monthly maintenance fees that double or triple, mortgages that become unfinanceable, and resale values that collapse overnight.

Banks already view co-ops on ground leases as risky. After Carnegie House, that caution will only intensify. Reduced lending means fewer buyers. Fewer buyers mean lower values. Lower values mean wiped-out equity—often the primary source of generational wealth for Black families.

This is not a hypothetical. It is the logical outcome of enforceable contracts in high-value markets.

The lesson here is uncomfortable but necessary:
Not all homeownership builds wealth. Some arrangements only delay loss.

For Black Westchester, this ruling should trigger urgent questions:

  • How many co-ops in our cities sit on expiring or resetting ground leases?
  • Were residents properly informed of the long-term risks?
  • Why were Black buyers disproportionately steered into these ownership models?
  • And why has housing advocacy focused on access without equal emphasis on asset quality?

Housing policy that celebrates “ownership” without examining who owns what is incomplete at best—and destructive at worst.

The Carnegie House decision did not create a new law. It simply enforced an old reality. But now that reality is undeniable.

If we do not confront it honestly, Black homeowners will continue to discover—too late—that what they were told was stability was actually a countdown.

And the courts will not save them from the fine print.

PBP Radio Jan. 18, 2025

AJ Woodson
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PBP Radio Jan. 18, 2025

Black Westchester presents the People Before Politics Radio Show with Damon K. Jones, AJ Woodson & Larnez Kinsey. Tonight, we’re bringing you a powerful and necessary conversation with two important voices shaping our community’s present and future.

Join Damon K. Jones, AJ Woodson, and Larnez Kinsey tonight as we bring you not just news, but context, accountability, and community-centered analysis you can’t get anywhere else.

LIVE from 6 PM to 8 PM on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X, powered by Black Westchester Magazine.

As always, you can follow Black Westchester on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn 

Follow People Before Politics Radio on Instagram and Twitter

If you want to support Black Westchester Magazine and People Before Politics Radio, you can always donate https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=9DT5P8R82NAHW

A Disabled Father Fights For Proposed Amendment to Protect New Yorkers (Law Enforcement Misconduct Enforcement Investigative Office)

AJ Woodson
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A Disabled Father Fights For Proposed Amendment to Protect New Yorkers (Law Enforcement Misconduct Enforcement Investigative Office)

On December 21, 2025, the episode of Black Westchester’s People Before Politics Radio Show with Damon K. Jones, AJ Woodson, and Larnez Kinsey featured guests Marc Fishman and James Christopher, who joined the show to discuss a proposed amendment to the Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office Act. The Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office Act refers to New York’s Executive Law Section 75, enacted in 2020, which established the Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office (LEMIO) within the State Attorney General’s office to provide statewide oversight for local police misconduct, investigating abuses like excessive force, corruption, and dishonesty, and recommending reforms to enhance accountability and public trust. This law mandates reporting of misconduct by officers and agencies, creating a new layer of external review for patterns of abuse. 

As promised on the show, Black Westchester is sharing the attached drafted letter, urging the NYS Senate and Assembly to support strengthening the LEMIO office and to help raise awareness of their efforts, encouraging others to contact their state representatives to sponsor and support this amendment (see below).

LEMIO Amendment Senate Format Expanded Public by BLACK WESTCHESTER MAGAZINE

Mr. Christopher and Mr. Fishman are reaching out to NYS Legislators, including Senator Shelley Meyers, to sponsor and support the proposed amendment and shared the following email to the state legislators with Black Westchester…

I urge your support for the proposed amendment to strengthen the Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office (LEMIO). As written, LEMIO can confirm misconduct but cannot require meaningful follow-through. That gap leaves New Yorkers without justice even after wrongdoing is acknowledged by the state.

As highlighted in Black Westchester Magazine, disabled father Marc Fishman’s case illustrates this problem clearly: official police misconduct was acknowledged, yet no mandatory case review followed. For defendants who are unjustly arrested, this lack of follow-through is not a technical oversight; it is a civil-rights failure. 

For defendants—who are disproportionately Black and disabled—this is not a technical flaw; it is a civil-rights failure. When confirmed misconduct triggers no mandatory review or action, Black and disabled New Yorkers are left bearing the consequences of violations the state has already recognized.

This amendment ensures that when misconduct is officially identified, it leads to review, transparency, and accountability—not silence. It does not weaken law enforcement. It strengthens trust by ensuring fairness applies equally to all New Yorkers.

I respectfully urge you to support this amendment and help ensure that accountability in New York means action, not just findings.

For more information, contact James Christopher at james@james-christopher.com

Liberal Supremacy and White Supremacy: Different Language, Same Outcomes

DAMON K JONES
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Liberal Supremacy and White Supremacy: Different Language, Same Outcomes

For more than three decades, Black Americans have participated in electoral politics with high consistency, but this predictability diminishes their influence, highlighting the need to critique their political dependence and explore strategic leverage.

Politics operates on incentives, not sentiment. Groups whose votes are contested are courted. Groups whose votes are guaranteed are managed. This is not a theory of oppression; it is a description of how political systems allocate attention and resources. When loyalty is delivered in advance and without conditions, leverage disappears. The loss of leverage is not compensated for by moral language or symbolic inclusion.

The modern structure of Black political dependency became especially clear during the 1990s. Following the victories of the Civil Rights era, Black political participation was absorbed mainly into a single-party framework, without the development of an independent, enforceable Black policy agenda. During that same period, material conditions in many Black communities failed to improve in proportion to political participation.

Black homeownership stood at roughly 42 percent in the late 1960s. More than fifty years later, it remains in the mid-40 percent range, while white homeownership remains near 70 percent. The median white household today holds roughly six to eight times the wealth of the median Black household, depending on the survey used. Black male college completion rates have stagnated relative to other groups, and Black life expectancy continues to lag national averages. Violent crime remains heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of urban ZIP codes that have been governed under uninterrupted one-party control for decades.

These outcomes did not emerge under hostile political rule. They emerged under political alignment.

What sustained this alignment was a rhetorical bait-and-switch. Black voters were repeatedly warned that the political alternative was racist, while being asked to tolerate stagnation or decline under the preferred coalition as a moral necessity. The comparison was framed in terms of intentions rather than results. Accusations of racism substituted for accountability, which can make the audience feel frustrated and distrustful of the system. Highlighting accountability underscores the importance of fairness and trust.

Over time, this framework produced a familiar illusion of progress. A limited number of Black individuals were elevated to elite positions, presented as evidence that the system worked. Exceptional cases were used to obscure aggregate outcomes. Possibility was confused with probability. Representation at the margins was treated as proof of advancement at the center. Yet broad measures of wealth, ownership, education, safety, and health remained essentially unchanged.

This is where the comparison between white supremacy and liberal supremacy becomes analytically sound. Traditional white supremacy excluded Black Americans from power explicitly. Modern liberal dominance does not exclude; it manages. Black participation is symbolically welcomed but substantively constrained. Autonomy is replaced with guidance. Dissent is reframed as danger. Loyalty is treated as a moral obligation rather than a transactional choice.

The mechanism of control has shifted from law and force to moral coercion. Under this system, deviation from approved political narratives is punished socially rather than legally. Questioning outcomes is framed as betrayal. Independence is equated with extremism. This form of discipline is less visible than overt exclusion, but it produces a similar result: decisions affecting Black communities are made without Black leverage.

In recent years, this same structure has been repackaged under the banner of democratic socialism. The language emphasizes equity and redistribution, but the political mechanics remain unchanged. Black voters are again urged to support broad ideological projects without a defined Black agenda, without negotiated benchmarks, and without consequences for non-delivery. Loyalty is still assumed first. Outcomes are still promised later.

A Black agenda should be a set of clear, enforceable priorities linked directly to political support, including non-negotiables, timelines, and consequences, to shift participation from symbolic to strategic.

While labor unions and senior citizens use withholding and punishment to negotiate, Black voters are discouraged from these tools, leading to a lack of leverage and strategic influence.

This dynamic is also visible in the immigration debate. Black Americans are increasingly urged to adopt immigration enforcement as their moral fight, with the claim that abuses directed at undocumented immigrants will eventually be directed at them. Yet Black Americans did not design modern immigration policy, do not control its enforcement, and are not its primary beneficiaries. At the same time, the local costs of immigration policy are often concentrated in low-income urban neighborhoods that are disproportionately Black.

In New York City, for example, the cost of housing and sheltering migrants has reached into the billions of dollars, straining municipal budgets. At the same time, low-income Black residents face housing shortages, school overcrowding, and cuts to local services. Objections to these impacts are not addressed on policy grounds; they are moralized. Black residents are told enforcement is cruel, that border control is unnecessary, and yet that expanded enforcement will eventually target them. These claims cannot all be true at once. What remains consistent is that Black political loyalty is again being requested without consultation, compensation, or reciprocal guarantees.

Liberal supremacy and white supremacy converge in function when Black Americans lack an independent Black agenda. In both systems, Black political participation is permitted but not empowered. Under traditional white supremacy, exclusion was enforced openly through law and force. Under liberal supremacy, inclusion is offered symbolically while autonomy is denied in practice. Without a defined agenda, Black voters are not negotiating partners but managed participants—expected to deliver loyalty, validate moral narratives, and absorb policy consequences without shaping outcomes. The absence of a Black agenda allows power to dictate priorities rather than respond to them, producing a familiar result: decisions affecting Black communities are made elsewhere, justified in different language, and defended as progress despite unchanged material conditions. Different rhetoric, same imbalance, same outcomes

None of this is an argument that Republicans have delivered better outcomes. It is an argument that one-party dependence eliminates leverage regardless of which party holds power. The problem is not party branding but the lack of collective bargaining power. Recognizing this can inspire the audience to see their collective strength as a tool for change, fostering hope and motivation.

Much of today’s political turmoil reflects an internal conflict within white America between liberal institutional elites and traditional or populist power structures over culture, governance, and authority. Black Americans did not initiate this conflict, do not control its trajectory, and do not automatically benefit from its resolution. Yet they are repeatedly enlisted as moral validators rather than policy stakeholders.

The consequences of this arrangement are now measurable across generations. Different languages have replaced the old language. New symbols have replaced old symbols. But the imbalance of power remains, and so do the outcomes.

A political group that cannot say no, cannot withhold support, and cannot impose consequences is not an equal partner. It is a resource.

Refusing to be mobilized without leverage is not disengagement. It is an acknowledgment of how politics actually works. Not every fight is Black America’s fight, particularly when decades of loyalty have failed to deliver proportional returns.

That conclusion is not ideological.

It is empirical.

What If MLK Was Alive Today???

AJ Woodson
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What If MLK Was Alive Today???

I’m sitting here watching the ninth episode of the first season of The Boondocks, titled ‘The Return Of The King,’ which aired January 15, 2006. The episode tackles the concept of what if MLK were alive today, how disgusted and downright disappointed he would be with how things are now.

In the episode, Huey Freeman narrates an alternate version of history in which Martin Luther King Jr. survived his assassination attempt on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, but fell into a 32-year coma, awakening in October 2000. 

Aaron McGruder the show’s creator, dealt with MLK, seeing how some of the streets named after him were the most violent, his disgust with BET, and the videos and music we see and hear all day, just to name a few of the issues it dealt with.

I sat there watching this episode, left with a big What If????

What if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were still alive today???

It made me realize how the Katrina aftermath showed the world just how far away America still is from that famous dream Dr. Martin Luther King Jr had that we hear all day on the radio and television every January and February.

How would he have dealt with the government’s slow response and the rebuilding of New Orleans??

Where would we be if he were still alive today?
What would he think of the current state of Hip Hop
What would he think of today’s lyrics
What would he think of the ways things are after the sacrifices he and others made for advancements, that today’s youth don’t take advantage of or even care in some cases???

What would he think of our current leaders who would rather play it safe than speak out on the atrocities faced by those in our inner cities? And how the preachers, teachers, and politicians continue to water down his legacy by turning him into a peaceful dreamer?

What happens when the youth wait for a leader and one never comes- what do they do, where do they turn???

When do we stop sitting still, celebrating the civil rights movement of the 60’s, and reminiscing, and step up to the plate and deal with our current situations we are facing.

As the title of Kevin Powell’s book ask “Who Will Take The Weight?”

How would MLK utilize this new technology age, we are in to get the word out and educate the youth and his people?

Big up to Aaron McGruder and company for addressing the topic.

Like the Boondocks, I pray this editorial is thought-provoking.
How do u think it would be if he were alive today?

What would be different???
Inquiring minds wanna know!!!

Ali- Happy Bday Champ! Who Today Would Risk It All For A Belief????

AJ Woodson
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Ali- Happy Bday Champ! Who Today Would Risk It All For A Belief????

On Saturday, January 17, 2026 The Greatest Of All Time, Muhammad Ali, would have been 84 years old. He may have fought professionally for 21 years, won the world heavyweight title three times, and paid a heavy physical price for his labours, but Ali was so much more than that.

Muhammad Ali’s greatness extends far beyond his legendary boxing skills because he was a courageous activist, a symbol of freedom and equality, a cultural icon who spoke truth to power, and a humanitarian who stood for his principles even when it cost him his prime years, making him a global inspiration for his fight for justice and self-belief.

It still remains an unequivocal point of view that Ali was the most charismatic sportsman of all-time and retains a place in the hearts of millions. Ali was not only one of the greatest to ever lace up a pair of boxing gloves, but an individual who gave up the best years of his career because of a belief.

Which brings me to the point of this editorial,
What Superstar Athlete would give up the best years of their career today for what they believe?

When you look at today’s superstars, best boxers right now, consistently topping pound-for-pound lists, include Terence Crawford, Oleksandr Usyk, and Naoya Inoue, and heavyweights like Tyson Fury, NBA stars like LeBron James, Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry, NFL quarterbacks Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, and returning MVP Patrick Mahomes, C.J. Stroud, Jared Goff, and Jalen Hurts and [insert superstar athletes here]. Who would be willing to fight for their beliefs even at the point of jail time and loss of the right to do what they do at the height of their career?

I’m sure some will name Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals safety who left football to become an Army Ranger, who was killed in southeastern Afghanistan in April 2004. While that was a very brave and patriotic move, and I in no way want to undermine the importance of that, but he wasn’t a superstar, a champion, a household name.

What superstar athlete today would give it all up? Ali was stripped of his championship title and denied the right to fight and earn a living doing what he does. But he would not go to war to fight against someone he didn’t perceive as an enemy. He also would not denounce the Nation of Islam when the government tried to get him to. He even threw his 1960 Olympic Gold Medal in the Ohio River in disgust at this country’s actions.

Here are just some of the key aspects of his impact outside the ring:

  • Civil Rights Activist: Ali was a vocal advocate for civil rights and a powerful voice against racial injustice, challenging the status quo and inspiring others to embrace individuality.
  • Vietnam War Protester: His refusal to be drafted, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to fighting for a country that denied Black people equal rights, led to him being stripped of his title and facing years out of the sport, a sacrifice that solidified his heroic image.
  • Cultural Icon: Ali’s charisma, showmanship, and powerful words made him a beloved figure for both celebrities and the common person, bridging gaps and becoming a symbol of peace, freedom, and equality.
  • Humanitarian: He used his platform to help others, engaging in charitable acts, working to free hostages, visiting the sick, and supporting underprivileged children, demonstrating a deep commitment to humanity.
  • Champion of Conviction: He refused to compromise his beliefs, even when it meant significant personal loss, teaching the world the power of conviction and identity, notes YouTube. 

Ali still appeared at major events, like the 1996 Olympics, and even as far back as 1991, he put his life on the line by going to Saddam Hussein and asking him to release American prisoners. Not to mention when he went to Iran years earlier, when President Carter and the United States Government couldn’t negotiate the release of the hostages, Ali went and was successful.

Muhammad Ali risked his career, freedom, and legacy by refusing the Vietnam War draft in 1967, citing his religious beliefs as a Muslim and opposition to the war, famously saying, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong”. This led to him being stripped of his World Heavyweight Boxing Championship title, losing millions in earnings, banned from boxing from 1967 to 1970, missing his prime years in the ring, convicted of draft evasion (though later overturned by the Supreme Court), he faced a potential five-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine after his conviction for draft evasion.

Don’t forget the public backlash he faced. He endured intense criticism and controversy, though he also gained immense respect for his stance. 

Yet he stood ten toes down on his principles of faith and justice, becoming a powerful symbol of resistance and was unapologetically Black!

Even when the Nation of Islam, the same religious group that anointed him Muhammad Ali, disavowed him for his style of active resistance, according to Dave Zirin’s A People’s History Of Sports In The United States. Jackie Robinson, who was larger than life for breaking Major League Baseball’s (MLB) color barrier on April 15, 1947, ripped Ali for disappointing black war veterans, and by and large, black soldiers agreed with Robinson: Ali was being too radical.

“He’s hurting, I think, the morale of a lot of young Negro soldiers over in Vietnam,” Robinson said. “And the tragedy to me is, Cassius has made millions of dollars off of the American public, and now he’s not willing to show his appreciation to a country that’s giving him, in my view, a fantastic opportunity.”

But to Ali, that “fantastic opportunity” was a death sentence, and moreover, representative of the white aristocracy’s use of poor, often Black Americans to fight the war for them.

“The government had a system where the rich man’s son went to college, and the poor man’s son went to war,” Ali said.

His courageous stand cemented his legacy as not just a great athlete but a moral icon who used his platform for profound social change. 

Sure, some athletes speak up today, but other than Colin Kaepernick, whose decision to kneel during the national anthem in 2016 to protest racial injustice and police brutality, which resulted in significant personal and professional risks, ultimately leading to the end of his NFL career. And Kyrie Irving, who is seen by some as a transcendent talent who consistently takes risks, both professionally and personally, often jeopardizing his own stability and team success for his beliefs or desires. The list ends there. Even in those situation they weren’t stripped of championships and didn’t risk spending years in jail.

All things considered, Ali’s enormous career sacrifice and the values it represented spread throughout the nation, and no athlete has had such a profound societal impact since. Professional athletes still speak out admirably on social issues fifty years after Ali said he had no conflicts with the Viet Cong. LeBron James, for example, wore a “I Can’t Breathe Shirt” in December 2014 to support protests for Eric Garner, but they don’t truly face the same risks as Ali.

Even LeBron James said Muhammad Ali is “the GOAT” not because of what he did in the ring but because of what he stood for outside it.

“Today I can sit and go to China and make trips to China and all over the world, and people know my name and know my face,” James said to ESPN. “I give all credit to Muhammad Ali because he was the first icon.”

In that ESPN article, James further makes my point that not every athlete is driven to take a stand on social and cultural issues the way Ali did — but that Ali’s work serves as motivation for James to continue to speak out and be active in the community.

Instead of risking their jobs for their activism, today’s brand-focused, businesslike athletes typically opt to make decorative political statements with T-shirts, playing gear, and social media posts.

What superstar athlete today would put it all on the line for what they believe? Holla back

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHAMP!!!

Brick by Brick, Still Standing in the Same Place

Larnez Kinsey
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Brick by Brick, Still Standing in the Same Place

On January 15, 2026, at 5:30 p.m., the Yonkers Riverfront Library didn’t just host a film screening; it hosted a reckoning.

If you walked into that room expecting a tidy ending to the civil rights story, you came seeking closure in a space where accountability has yet to arrive. What you encountered instead was a mirror. A time machine. And a reminder that Westchester often calls injustice “history” when the work of reckoning feels too close.

The event was sponsored by the Westchester County Human Rights Commission and the NAACP Yonkers Branch. The evening centered on a screening of “Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story,” a documentary that traces Yonkers’ prolonged and bitter fight for desegregation housing and education from the 1970s through the 1990s.

And before anyone could get cozy thinking, “Oh, that was back then,” the evening made one thing painfully clear: the “then” IS Now. It just learned how to speak in policy memos instead of protest chants.

Tejash Sanchala of the Westchester County Human Rights Commission opened the program by grounding the room in why this story still matters, not as nostalgia, but as unfinished business. It was Sanchala who also made clear that Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins is, quite literally, the “Mother of the Westchester County Human Rights Commission.” Institutions don’t appear out of thin air. Someone has to fight for them, fund them, defend them, and keep them alive when political will gets shaky.

This wasn’t simply a screening. It was a shared understanding in the room that policy only moves when people refuse to let it stand still.

Kisha D. Skipper, President of the NAACP Yonkers Branch, one of the sponsors of the program, stepped fully into that moment. Not just supporting, but naming the ecosystem. She acknowledged fellow NAACP leaders who have been consistently active in housing justice initiatives: Janice Griffith of White Plains/Greenburgh and Aisha Cook of New Rochelle. Because movements don’t happen in silos and erasure thrives when we pretend that they do.

Kisha also made it clear that the Yonkers NAACP was not adjacent to this history; it was integral to it. She reminded the audience that the movement documented in Brick by Brick did not unfold without organized resistance and sustained advocacy from the Yonkers NAACP.

The film itself features Winston Ross, a pioneering President of the Yonkers NAACP from 1971 to 1978 and former Westchester Regional Director, whose leadership helped shape the city’s response to housing segregation during one of its most volatile chapters. By naming that legacy aloud, Kisha bridged past and present, reinforcing that today’s advocacy is not a reinvention, but a continuation of work built brick by brick by leaders willing to confront power directly.

Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins echoed that sentiment, affirming the critical role the Yonkers NAACP has played then and now. She noted that the branch’s work has never wavered, only evolved and emphasized that under Kisha D. Skipper’s leadership, the Yonkers NAACP continues to meet today’s housing and human rights challenges with the same clarity, resolve, and moral urgency that defined its earlier work.

Also present were the people who show up when the cameras aren’t rolling: Michael Sabatino, Director of the Yonkers Human Rights Commission, and Michelle Sayegh, its Secretary. NY State Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins was in attendance, alongside representatives from her office Symra Brandon former Westchester County Legislator and Director of Community Affairs for Stewart-Cousins, Anne Willis and Jacob Weitzman, representative for Senator Shelley Mayer,  Christine Fils- Aime, representative for  Assemblyman Nader Sayegh, Chandra Sookdeo, and representative for Councilwoman Corazón Pineda-Isaac’s, Leslye Oquendo-Thomas.

Translation: this room mattered.

The panel itself reflected the many lanes this fight has traveled, legal, personal, political, and cultural.

William Kavanagh, producer of Brick by Brick, reminded the audience that the film was never meant to be a victory lap. It was documentation. A warning. A record of what happens when communities are forced to litigate their humanity brick by brick while institutions opposing them wait comfortably for exhaustion to do the work.

George Asante, Director of the Westchester County Office of Housing Counsel, grounded the conversation in present-day enforcement, pointing to how the legacy of segregation continues to shape where money flows, where it doesn’t, and who is expected to absorb the consequences quietly.

Then there was Gene Capello and when Gene spoke, the room leaned in.

Capello appears in the documentary, but during the panel he did something more important than narrate the past. He invited the audience to borrow his lens.

He posed a question that cut through policy language and landed squarely in the body:

“What’s more important than where you live?”

And then he answered it.

Where you live determines the opportunities you discover and the ones you never even get close enough to imagine.

Capello helped found FairHousingJustice.org, an organization rooted in that truth. Because housing isn’t just shelter, it’s access. It’s stability. It’s whether banks see you as “investable” or invisible.

Before moving on, Gene paused to acknowledge someone sitting quietly in the audience, his wife, Doris Capello. He shared that she never left his side during the fight. Not through the legal battles. Not through the exhaustion. Not through the moments when pushing forward would have been easier to abandon. Doris, he said, was his fuel, the reason he kept pushing when the resistance felt relentless.

It was a reminder that movements aren’t powered by individuals alone. They’re sustained by unseen labor, by partnership, by the people who hold the weight when the spotlight isn’t theirs.

And the data backed Gene’s lens.

During the discussion, it was noted that most evictions in Yonkers occur in the 10701 zip code, one zip code absorbing a disproportionate share of displacement while other areas remain insulated.

That’s not coincidence. That’s design.

The panel addressed banking inequalities that mirror old redlining maps, where red-coded neighborhoods still experience disinvestment, while blue-coded areas enjoy an abundance of capital. Money flows freely where risk is perceived as low,  and dries up where communities have long been labeled expendable.

This is how people lose homes without missing payments.

This is how instability becomes normalized.

This is how entire neighborhoods are treated as temporary.

And it’s not just local.

Racial covenants, once explicit, now disguised,  still echo across the country, shaping who gets to keep their home, who gets pushed out, and who is forced to rebuild again and again without ever being allowed to settle.

Joshua Levin, also a panelist, spoke from another critical vantage point. While not featured in the documentary, he was actively engaged in housing and civil rights battles during the period when the film was developed and released. As he reflected on that era, the realization was unavoidable: today’s housing fights don’t feel like distant descendants of the past.

They feel familiar.

Different language.

Same delays.

Same resistance to equity dressed up as “process” and “procedure.”

What the panel ultimately made clear is that Yonkers and Westchester more broadly, is still negotiating with a history it has yet to fully resolve.

We didn’t just watch a documentary. We time-traveled. And when we came back to 2026, the buildings looked newer, the branding looked softer but the systems were standing in the same place.

The question now is whether moments like this stay in libraries or move into legislation.

And more specifically, whether the current administration is willing to do what equity actually requires: build decent-quality, truly affordable and low-income housing east of Sawmill River Road, not just where it’s politically convenient, but where it disrupts the crimson lines segregation was designed to protect.

Fair housing cannot remain concentrated west of those crimson lines that have dictated opportunity for generations. If access to stability, quality schools, green space, and economic mobility continues to stop at Sawmill Road, then we are not correcting history, we are maintaining it with better language.

This is the work in front of us.

Not studies.

Not symbolism.

Construction. Commitment. Political courage.

That’s the uncomfortable truth Brick by Brick leaves you with.

Progress isn’t linear. Justice isn’t guaranteed. And history doesn’t repeat itself, it just waits for us to get tired.

The real question isn’t whether Yonkers has changed.

It’s whether we’re finally ready to finish what people before us started or if we’re going to keep applauding stories about courage while avoiding the courage it takes to disrupt what still benefits from inequality.

Because brick by brick doesn’t just describe how injustice was built.

It’s also how it gets dismantled.

And that part?

That’s on us.

Celebrating the Real Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—Not the One Made Comfortable

AJ Woodson
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Celebrating the Real Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—Not the One Made Comfortable

Every January for his birthday and February for Black History Month, Americans gather to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with phrases taken neatly from context, speeches shorn of discomfort, and a depiction of the man made palatable enough to offend no one. We are reminded that he had a dream, that he believed in peace and that love could overcome hatred. What we are rarely reminded of is that Dr. King was considered dangerous in his day by the powers to be, surveilled and labeled a terrorist by the federal government, denounced and condemned by the mainstream mostly white press, and assassinated while organizing the poor.

That whitewashing of history is not an accident. It is a strategy.

In his latter years, Dr. King greatly broadened his focus to confront poverty and economic inequality. He culminated the multiracial Poor People’s Campaign demanding jobs and income for all. To bring oppressed communities together and demand economic justice, and he advocated for systemic improvements. He believed that economic justice was the next stage of the fight for equality, reparations, contending that poverty was the main cause of societal inequality and that as long as adventures like Vietnam continued to attract men, skills, and money, America would never devote the necessary resources to the rehabilitation of its impoverished.

In his “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence” speech on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City when he was named co-chairperson of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, Dr. King spoke out against the Vietnam War and to “recapture the revolutionary spirit” of social justice in America.

This is the speech they NEVER share every January and February because it goes against their narrative of Dr King being a peaceful dreamer who believe in non-violence. But Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. knew the political consequences of speaking out against the Vietnam War − and he did it anyway.

“They got money for war, but can’t feed the poor,” Tupac spat in 1993 on his hit single Keep Ya Head Up.

Dr King challenged the government asking that very question, 26 years earlier. How could a nation spend so much money on a war, King asked, when it could not feed or protect its own people?

…and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

Ten days after the Beyond Vietnam speech, in another speech rarely shared, at Stanford University titled “The Other America,” Dr. King addresses race, poverty and economic justice. (At various times in 1967 and ’68 he gave slightly different versions of “The Other America” to other audiences.) Here, he expounds on his nonviolent philosophy and methodology.

And I use this subject because there are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful for situation. And, in a sense, this America is overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this America, millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions. And in this America millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity.

But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.


The version of Dr. King most often presented today is a neutralized King—one stripped of his radical critique of American power, capitalism, militarism, and racial hierarchy. But I say to truly celebrate his REAL legacy requires us to move beyond comfort of rewritten force-fed history and confront what he actually stood for—and what he was fighting against.

Dr. King Was Not a Symbol—He Was a Threat

Dr. King was more than just a civil rights activist calling for desegregation by the late 1960s. He had turned into a moral insurgent challenging the foundations and fundamentals of American culture. He publicly denounced the Vietnam War and referred to the US as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” He criticized capitalism for creating both crippling poverty and outrageous wealth. He demanded not charity, but justice.

For this, he was vilified.

Major newspapers accused him of undermining national unity. Politicians distanced themselves. Even some civil rights allies urged him to “stay in his lane.” The FBI labeled him a subversive, wiretapped him, and attempted to destroy him psychologically. None of this fits the Hallmark version of Dr. King we are taught to celebrate.

Don’t get it twisted “The Dream” Was Never Colorblindness. Perhaps the most abused part of Dr. King’s legacy is the idea that he dreamed of a “colorblind” America—one where race no longer mattered and everyone simply got along. That framing ignores his actual words and intent. Dr. King did not argue that America should ignore race. He argued that America must repair the damage racism caused. He supported policies that today would be labeled “radical,” “divisive” or even “Liberal”: fair housing laws, labor protections, guaranteed income, and massive public investment in marginalized communities. He understood that equality without equity is a lie.

Let’s be real, Dr. King’s Fight Was Economic as Much as It Was Racial. At the time of his death, Dr. King was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign—a multiracial movement aimed at confronting poverty, wage exploitation, and economic injustice. He was in Memphis supporting striking sanitation workers, men who carried signs reading “I Am a Man” because the system refused to recognize their humanity. This was not accidental symbolism. Dr. King understood that racism and economic exploitation were intertwined. He believed civil rights victories meant little if people remained poor, housing insecure, and disposable.

That is why he demanded a guaranteed income.
That is why he challenged corporate power.
That is why he frightened those in power.

Even many of our Black Elected Officials and Black Pastors today run with the watered down narrative of Dr. King as a peaceful dreamer, because the Real Dr. King Still Makes America Uncomfortable.

“Justice too long delayed is justice denied” was not a polite suggestion—it was an indictment.

The reason the real Dr. King is rarely taught is simple: his message still threatens the status quo.

A King who demands racial repair challenges power.
A King who condemns militarism questions empire.
A King who criticizes capitalism disrupts profit.
A King who sides with workers unsettles wealth.

So America keeps the dream—and buries the demands.

To all our Teachers, Preachers and Politicians I say Honoring Dr. King Means More Than Quoting Him

To truly honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is not to repost his words once a year while ignoring the conditions he fought against they other 364 days. It means asking uncomfortable questions about whose lives are still undervalued, whose labor is still exploited, and whose suffering is still normalized.

It means recognizing that the struggle he gave his life for is unfinished.

Dr. King did not die for a holiday.
He died for a transformation.

And if we are serious about honoring his legacy, we must stop celebrating the version of him that makes us feel good—and start confronting the one who demanded we do better.

Because the real tribute to Dr. King is not remembrance.

It is resistance.

Let’s celebrate the REAL Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., today. January 15, 2026 would have been his 97th birthday! Let’s not just celebrate the day off, lets continue the work. Let’s not let his legacy be watered down and whitewashed! Continuing the work he lived and died for is the best way to celebrate Dr. King and honor his legacy and that’s REAL TALK!

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