State Senator Zellnor Myrie, a mayoral candidate on this yr’s election, launched a Black Agenda for NYC this week.
“I’m a proud Afro Costa Rican, son of two Black immigrants that got here to New York Metropolis near 50 years in the past,” mentioned Myrie at a press convention in Metropolis Corridor Park on Monday, March 13.
“I grew up round Black New Yorkers, who understood that if you happen to work onerous you had alternative on this metropolis to achieve success. To be on the trail to success. However for too many Black New Yorkers, that’s not a actuality. Town is completely different, and the subsequent mayor of this metropolis has to have an agenda that may assist Black New Yorkers.”
Most of his Black Agenda attracts on his private experiences as a local Brooklynite or from years of laws and advocacy as a state senator, centering round closing the racial wealth hole, public well being and security, financial growth; common 3-Okay/pre-Okay schooling and afterschool for all applications; and local weather resiliency, flood safety, and catastrophe response in uncared for communities like Southeast Queens, the Northeast Bronx, and east Brooklyn.
Myrie mentioned that it’s particularly essential to guard civil rights pioneered by Black management in the course of the present federal administration. “We now have a president who’s explicitly concentrating on Black folks all through this whole nation,” mentioned Myrie. “A president that’s eliminating Civil Rights litigation, that’s charging staff charged with implementing civil rights. Victories we fought for for many years to realize at the moment are being erased below this president.”
He’s hardly the one mayoral candidate hoping to sway Black and Brown voters by talking on to the neighborhood with coverage directives and marketing campaign guarantees. In a crowded race, he’s one in every of 4 outstanding Black candidates: incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and former Assemblymember Michael Blake. Myrie has raised $3.8 million in donations to this point, mentioned his marketing campaign.
Nonetheless, in response to latest polls, former Governor Andrew Cuomo just isn’t solely main the race however has big assist from Black and Hispanic voters.
“As a state Senator representing a predominantly Black district, Andrew Cuomo has not been a good friend to the Black neighborhood. Andrew Cuomo has come to our neighborhood to rehabilitate his picture. He’s come and sit in our pews on Sundays after which on Monday he cuts our faculties,” mentioned Myrie. “He has stood in the way in which of tenant protections, he’s minimize rental help, he’s minimize our hospitals. He proposed to shut SUNY Downstate, ravenous of cash in the midst of a pandemic. I look ahead to making that document very clear to my neighborhood.”
A big a part of Myrie’s push to shut the wealth hole is to advertise extra homeownership amongst Black New Yorkers. This contains establishing a first-generation homebuyers fund, rising enforcement of anti-discrimination legal guidelines in mortgage lending, partnering with Minority and Ladies-Owned Enterprise Enterprises (M/WBE) builders to construct inexpensive houses in traditionally Black neighborhoods, combatting deed theft, and advocating for tax lien reform.
Black maternal well being and males’s psychological well being are key elements of how Myrie plans to deal with public well being. The agenda plans to fund devoted birthing facilities in Black-majority neighborhoods, increase Medicaid protection for doulas and midwives to scale back excessive maternal mortality charges amongst Black ladies, in addition to increase free psychological well being providers and profession pathways for younger Black males, and create a trauma heart within the Rockaways in Queens.
By way of public security and stopping gun violence, Myrie plans to increase the Each Block Counts program — a pilot program launched in October 2024 within the Bronx and Brooklyn. He desires to implement this system within the fortieth, forty second, forty fourth, forty sixth, and forty seventh Precincts within the Bronx and the 73rd and seventy fifth Precincts in Brooklyn. These seven precincts are thought-about the town’s highest-risk areas. He additionally plans to revive funding to the Division of Probation (DOP) Subsequent STEPS Program.
Myrie continues to ballot behind Cuomo, Adams, A. Adams, and different candidates like Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani and Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander.
The Democratic major can be on June 24 this yr.
