Kamau At Karate Class

Pizza with Kamau

At The Supeme Court

At the Supreme Court

Why We Should Care

I was confronted by a resident in Harlem about my comments in this article: www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121218/west-harlem/black-architects-say-columbia-shut-them-out-of-63-billion-harlem-campus, as to why Harlem should care if Black Architects are denied work on Columbia s 6 billion dollar expansion. Below is my response. _____ "They were not cordial to Negro patronage, unless you were a celebrity like Bojangles. So Harlem Negroes did not like the Cotton Club and never appreciated its Jim Crow policy in the very heart of their dark community." Langston Hughes During my term as chair of Manhattan Community Board 9, I had the opportunity to work closely with Columbia’s team, charged with the building of Manhattanville. I sensed in them a genuine need to honor the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) as it spoke to minority and women business participation in the project. Needless to say, I was taken aback when I recently read that Columbia was now unilaterally taking the position that architectural services were not a part of the CBA. As an attorney, I have read the CBA and General Project Plan (GPP) and I have no doubt that not only architectural, but all other professional services are a part of the Minority Women Business Enterprise (MWBE) goals in both documents. Was I bamboozled by a few members of Columbia’s construction team? The answer is too complex for a simple yes or no response. Columbia is at war with itself. The academy believes that it is not only important to live up to its commitment in the CBA but believes if it fails to do so, it will undermine its moral force as an educational institution for decades to come. But the other half of Columbia’s duality is that of a large real estate company. It functions in every way as a corporation whose sole focus is to maximize its holdings. And in doing so, it has gained a reputation for a willingness to plow over any community, group or individual to succeed its mission. It is clear by Columbia's position that the real-estate side is winning. Its stance on architects is symptomatic of the historical treatment of the economic aspirations of people of color in New York. Africans, along with the Dutch, are the oldest immigrants in the city. After 400 years, we remain what Derek Bell called "the faces at the bottom of the well." Unlike immigrants of European descent, Africans have never been fully vested in the economic life of the city. For instance, both Jewish and Italian immigrants faced daunting discrimination and poverty upon their initial entry into New York. The Draft Riots were the result of Italian immigrants' rage at decades of systematic discrimination and poverty. Ironically, their anger was aimed equally at the city's business interest and Africans. Why should they fight to free slaves who would flood the city and take their jobs, was their thought. But ultimately, because of their European ethnicity, they received vesture in the economic life of the city. As each new immigrant group was granted full economic participation, the Africans remained at the bottom. For over 350 years they were locked in perpetual competition with each new wave of immigrants for the city's menial jobs. The Puerto Ricans, who arrived in the late 40s and 50s, like all other immigrants of African descent were sent straight to the bottom. The Dominicans soon followed. Needless to say, it is getting crowed at the bottom of the well. New York’s history is littered with many examples of how political and corporate interests have colluded to redline African economic aspirations. When the city leaders began the ambitious endeavor to build a great park in the middle of the island, it was decided that Africans could not work on Central Park in order to appease Italian and German immigrants. The Great Depression was devastating to the city. For Harlem residents, who had already been economically isolated, the desperation was even worse. When, like the Italians before them, Harlemites rioted, Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia, the last great mayor of the people, a man who celebrated the city’s diversity and whom the Amsterdam News endorsed by saying "The Negro people has no greater friend" journeyed to Harlem. With Adam Clayton Powell and other ministers sitting on the podium, LaGuardia candidly told Harlem that he understood its plight, but even he was powerless to change it. In the late 40's and 50's, banks and political powers redlined Harlem, turning what had historically been a diverse ethnic neighborhood into a black and Puerto Rican ghetto. These seeds would lay the ground for Robert Moses’ devastating urban renewal, the riots in the 60s and the crack epidemic of the 80’s. In Harlem today, real estate and city officials are now like a husband who abandoned his family decades earlier, suddenly showing up expressing unrequited love, when one of the children becomes a wealthy star athlete. Harlem's sweeping vistas, grand boulevards, seemingly unlimited housing stock and express trains to midtown is a commercial siren song too profitable for developers to resist. The Manhattanville project is the most glaring example that Harlem is now in full transition. Transition is neither good nor bad on the island of Manhattan. We live in a unique place whose only normalcy is change. We are the first generation of Harlemites that possess the technical expertise and political clout to shape the transition. Like no other generation before us, we have the tools to fight for our place in the next Harlem. The CBA and GPP represent over $2 billion in jobs, contracts and in-kind services. The CBA/GPP, if fully realized, will go down in history as one of the most important achievements of economic equality in the 400-year history of Harlem. Our "agenda" is to ensure that Columbia lives up to every commitment in the CBA/GPP. That means every job, every contract, every school and every in-kind service. The West Harlem Local Development Corporation should immediately hire a law firm to audit Columbia’s compliance to the CBA and take appropriate action to bring Columbia into compliance. The community should insist the Empire State Development Corporation do the same with the GPP. Today, the redlines no longer surround neighborhoods, but instead they circle the city's mega projects such as Barclay, Hudson Yards, World Trade Center, Second Avenue subway line and Manhattanville like a medieval moat. A barrier built on a mixture of race and greed that says to professionals of color - you need not apply. In Manhattanville and Grant Houses, there are young people of color, gazing out their windows at the cranes that are now rising against the winter's sky. Many dream that one day they might design and build a tower there. But clouding their mental sky with doubt is that invisible redline. We owe it to these young entrepreneurs to erase the redline so no more dreams are deferred in Harlem.

Tearing Down Walls

As the Chairman of Community Board Nine I worked for 12 months to bridge the differences between Columbia and the larger West Harlem Community. I failed. Time and space does not permit nor is it necessary to place blame. The fact remains that the Manhattanville Project is a metaphor for the future of New York. How do you reconcile the relentless development of the island of Manhattan, that spans some 400 years -which is as much a part of New York life as Lady Liberty standing in the harbor welcoming the economic, social and political refugees of the world- with the rights of indigenous neighborhoods and people to remain on this special place. I have no answers. I only know that the Harlem that I love, is and will be transformed. But into what, is in the hands of Columbia and the people. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2010/11/29/new-community-board-chair-backs-cu http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2011/03/31/activist-and-cb9-chair-clash-m-ville-panel-discussion http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2011/01/28/cb9-chair-encourages-cooperation-m-ville-meeting http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2011/11/04/morgan-request-development-corp-records

Languishing Corn Exchange and Taystee Bakery Sites to Be Developed - DNAinfo.com New York

Languishing Corn Exchange and Taystee Bakery Sites to Be Developed - DNAinfo.com New York

Local Board Seeks to Boot Harlem's Mink Building From Landmark List - DNAinfo.com New York

Local Board Seeks to Boot Harlem's Mink Building From Landmark List - DNAinfo.com New York

City Agrees to Give CB 9 a Say Over Citarella Site, Not Full Control - DNAinfo.com New York

City Agrees to Give CB 9 a Say Over Citarella Site, Not Full Control - DNAinfo.com New York

Harlem Community Board Demands Say in Citarella Site Development - DNAinfo.com New York

Harlem Community Board Demands Say in Citarella Site Development - DNAinfo.com New York

CB 9 Wants Group Handling $150 M in Columbia Cash to Disclose Finances - DNAinfo.com New York

CB 9 Wants Group Handling $150 M in Columbia Cash to Disclose Finances - DNAinfo.com New York

Group Handling Columbia Cash Spent $300K on Consultants With Political Ties - DNAinfo.com New York

Group Handling Columbia Cash Spent $300K on Consultants With Political Ties - DNAinfo.com New York

MERCY IS FOR THOSE THAT DO NOT DESERVE IT

In August I represented Robert McCoy, who was charged with killing his mother-in-law, father-in-law and sixteen year-old step son Gregory Colston. Gregory had a 3.8 GPA, and a scholarship to college. A month before the start of the trial, the State of Louisiana offered McCoy the opportunity to plea to life without benefit of probation or parole. He rejected it. A week before trial McCoy asked the court to terminate my representation, which the court refused to do. McCoy had fired his original legal team and was representing himself, when I took the case.

In my opening statement I told the jury that no reasonable person can listen to the evidence that the state will present and reach any other conclusion than Robert McCoy caused the death of the three victims. Although, McCoy had been found competent to stand trial in an earlier proceeding, I argued that Robert McCoy was insane.

The State presented to the jury a police cruiser video of Robert McCoy vehicle fleeing the murder scene. The video showed someone who looked like McCoy running from the vehicle. The state played a chilling 9-11 call from his mother-in-law begging for her life and repeating "Robert she ain t here", a reference to her daughter. The state played a video from Wal-Mart showing McCoy purchasing bullets the day of the crime. McCoy was captured after a nation wide manhunt in Idaho with the murder weapon in his possession. If that was not enough, two witnesses testified that he told them immediately after the crime that he had killed someone.

During the trial McCoy repeatedly shouted out in court that I was helping the State railroad him. He testified that the Police conspired to set him up because he reported they were selling drugs. His explanation for the murder weapon being found on him, was that the Idaho Police had conspired with the Bossier Parish Police to plant the weapon on him. His last statement to the jury was "I am not a monster."

At the close of the guilt phase I pointed to McCoy’s own bizarre behavior and argued that he was insane and the jury should give him life. A jury of ten white and two African-Americans deliberated four hours and found McCoy guilty of capital murder.

At the penalty phase McCoy estranged wife testified that he had kidnapped her three months before the murders and put a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her. She alleged that their two year-old daughter was lying at her feet during the attack. And the testimony of losing her mother, stepfather and son was gut wrenching.

I called a psychologist who testified that Robert McCoy suffered from severe personality disorder and that it was a contributing factor to his committing the murders. My final statement to the jury was "Mercy is given to those that do not deserve it". The jury came back after four hours and asked the court when was it appropriate to declare they were deadlocked. The judge sent them back in to deliberate and two hours later they came back with a death verdict.

The appellate courts over the next decade will decide whether Robert McCoy received a fair trial. But this trial changed everyone in the courtroom from the twelve jurors, the judge, the attorneys, to the bailiffs. It was the most important trial of my career. Yet I take no professional joy from it.

Everyone in that courtroom will live with the fact that we participated in the State condemning an individual to death. As a lawyer you learn to walk away from a case when it is over with – for this case there is no walking away. The fact that the evidence in McCoy's case was so overwhelming does not change that fact.

That is why I am so troubled by the execution of Troy Davis. The state of Georgia killing Troy Davis on the testimony of shaky eyewitnesses and no DNA evidence should have never happened. Whether Troy Davis committed the crime of murder or not, there was too much uncertainty to allow his execution.

After twenty years of criminal defense work, I have lost my moral opposition to the death penalty. Civil society is too fragile. There are crimes so heinous, that you abdicate your right to live among us. However, Did McCoy's mental illness play a significant role in the murders? The state sanctioned killing of a human being forces the entire nation to travel the road of moral ambiguity.

For several weeks at the conclusion of Robert McCoy's trial, I was in mourning. I mourned the sheer horror that a death penalty trial impose on all of its participants. But what I was really mourning was the human loss, particularly, Gregory Colston. The African-American community is too fragile to lose young men with 3.8 GPA's and scholarships to college.

But I also mourn Troy Davis. We may have put an innocent man to death. That uncertainty is too high a price to express society’s outrage.

Summer Time New York City

One of the great joys of living in New York City is that in August, Donnette and I will pick out a neighborhood each evening and hang out. Each neighborhood is so unique, it is like visiting a different city. Last nite we chose Madison Park in Chelsea. Madison Park is a beautiful green oasis in the the heart of Manhattan. We found a bench and listen to five people sitting at table all playing ukaleles and next to them sitting in a circle were about ten people meditating -only in New York.

As we left the park we stumbled upon "Echo" in the center of the park. The statue is designed by Jaume Plensa, perhaps the premier public artist of his generation. Echo refers to an episode in Greek mythology in which the loquacious nymph Echo is forced as punishment to repeat only the thoughts of others.

And Justice For All

I recently finished the most difficult trial of my career. My client Robert McCoy was found guilty of three counts of first degree murder. At the penalty phase the jury after 6 hours of deliberations imposed the death penalty.

http://www.stormtracker12.com/story/15210432/mccoy-takes-stand-in-triple-murder-trial-jury-now-deliberating?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=6118225




http://www.ktbs.com/video/28770875/index.html

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/D9/20110805/NEWS03/108050330/Jury-finds-McCoy-guilty-2008-triple-murder


http://www.ktbs.com/news/28754606/detail.html

I Ain't No Slave

The Reverend Jessie Jackson comments that Cleavland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert spoke about Lebron James as if he was a "run away slave" was on point. I just wish he had included New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who criticized James in a column titled "Miami Hoops Cartel" a clear play on words ascribing Bosh, Wade and James to the Miami's notorious drug cartels. Dowd writes that Gilbert was "played' by James.

What both Dowd and Gilbert rant's fail to take in account, is that in the not too distant pass Pro Sport Owners brought and sold players like they were running a plantation. Players had no control over their careers, where they would play or how much money they would demand for their services.

The NBA in the seventies and eighties had a history of plucking young unsophisticated and uneducated athletes out of the America's Ghettos and exploiting them for millions of dollars and depositing them back as uneducated and broke as they found them.

The facts are as follows: James an 18 year-old high school educated kid from a single household signed a series of contracts for a term of seven years. He made a little money off the contracts but Gilbert made hundreds of millions. His building was sold out every night. He made millions off of jerseys, cups, t-shirts and whatever else he could plaster James face on. James turned his also-ran franchise into one of the most valuable in sports. At the end of the contract which James fulfilled, James took his services to the market place and entered into a new business arrangement with a new partner. That sounds like capitalism to me.

Now Gilbert using slave master tones calls James a "coward and quitter". And Dowd calls James and his two teammates gangsters, as if they committed a sin by maximizing their on court and off court opportunities by choosing to play together.

I would much rather see James, Bosh and Wade rising through the smoke in Miami's arena as future billionaires, than the images so prevalent in the seventies and eighties of ex-players washing cars, in drug rehab or jail. As Curt Flood who sacrificed his career decades ago for James to do exactly what he did, said so eloquently " I ain't no slave"

Rev Al and Tavis

Rev Al Sharpton and Tavis Smiley got into an heated exchange about President Barack Obama and Black America. I started to write about it but then someone sent me Paul Mooney comments on the President and no one can say it better.

Doing What I Do 1

A Voice For Henry