 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Black Power part 8
It is noteworthy that Uhuru Sasa included as staff members Yusef Iman, who originally came out of the Nation of Islam's Temple #7 in Harlem, and Herman Ferguson. Both were members of the Organization of the Afro-American Association and known to have had significant contact with Malcolm X.
1969 - 1970
By 1969, BK CORE members were working in coalition with and forming different groups. There appears to be less and less focus by BK CORE members on the chapter.
Carson, Lamont and others, for example became active members of other groups such as, the Congress of African Peoples, the Black Panthers (whose Brooklyn group had an office not far away on 789 Nostrand Ave.), and the Republic of New Africa.
Membership in these groups could be fluid. As with the members of the various CORE chapters in Long Island, many of the same people seemed to come together in groups which manifested in several different variations, perhaps depending on the issue.
At the end of 1969, BK CORE, along with several other local grassroots leaders, 'bumrushed' the mostly White Regional Plan Association's annual conference, a meeting of people involved in the city's master plan to remake the face of NYC. Screaming 'Damn the Masters Plan', Carson and others were deliberately disruptive, throwing bread rolls at the attendees, yelling over speakers at the podium, and seizing the microphone as Roy Innis and Harlem CORE did at a banker's conference earlier that year.
At the beginning of 1970, Carson led a bus caravan with several hundred people up to Albany on the first day of the State Legislature. The resulting demonstration at the state senate was again generally disruptive. Assemblymen were shouted down on the floor of the state assembly by demonstrators who challenged them from the gallery. One of the demonstrators even set fire to a curtain in the assembly parlor.
BK CORE had still been slowly shrinking partially because of Ali Lamont's legal problems stemming from the assault on the principal. By 1971 it had officially 'become inactive'.
Sam Pinn and the new Brooklyn CORE
By March 1971, BK CORE had been reactivated as part of national CORE. The effort had been initiated and led by Sam Pinn who became chairman. Jim Thompson served as a vice chairman. Other officers would later include Sacks Green, Arnold Freeman and Ed Brown.
Pinn, a graduate of Morgan State, also had a masters degree in social work from Rutgers University. This shows in the direction the new Brooklyn CORE took and its concentration on education and health care services, including an emphasis on battling drug addiction. This may be the chapter's real legacy - its series of community services programs, mostly health, such as a Mature Adult Center it opened in July, 1972 to help senior citizens get assistance.
BK CORE had an office at 287 Reis Avenue but its meetings were held at St. Paul's Lutheran church. By October, its office moved to 451A Nostrand Ave. where it opened a crisis center to help people with social and community problems, run by Grace Harewood.
Like Harlem CORE around this time, the chapter was organizing around community needs and involved whenever there was an incident involving racism, a riot, etc. In charging the (mostly White) Fort Green school board with racism, for example, BK CORE continued organizing campaigns similar to those of 1967-68.
BK CORE was also involved in the case of Black man shot by a White cop and the riot that followed in May 1971. Pinn and other members found witnesses to the shooting which helped to quell the riot. As chair of the Citizens Committee for Justice, Pinn then helped create a Black Legion to defend Blacks in the area from racist attacks, specifically from NYPD. In addition, BK CORE had a legal services clinic and provided free legal services.
By end of the year, the chapter was working to assist 'inmates in city and state correctional' institutions. Whereas earlier versions of the chapter established small internal groups referred to as committees to deal with specific issues, Pinn's version established groups named in such a way as to suggest they stood on their own but still functioned out of the BK CORE office. The Council to Help Aid Prisoners is one example. Led by Hassan Dawud, it included regular bus trips to help family and friends visit inmates at prisons such as Attica, Green Haven, Clinton and Auburn correctional facilities.