NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Eric Adams is barely the second African American to grow to be mayor of New York Metropolis.
Because the nation and town have a good time Black History Month, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer sat down with the mayor to speak about why he selected a lifetime of public service, and what he hopes to perform for all New Yorkers.
“After we uplift the African Individuals and acknowledge Black Historical past Month, we’re acknowledging that this can be a nation the place everybody has the chance to aspire. When you’ll be able to depart the slave plantations after which grow to be the mayor of this necessary metropolis, that claims to each group on this nation that the probabilities are countless,” Adams stated.
(credit score: CBS2)
As Kramer walked with Adams in Metropolis Corridor, previous photos of the boys who had beforehand been elected to run town, it was with a way not solely of historical past. They walked previous the image of David Dinkins, who 32 years earlier as a result of town’s first Black mayor, but additionally of the probabilities, the promise of town’s second Black mayor may obtain.
“Thank God for America. America is the one place, Marcia, the place we have now dream hooked up to our identify. There’s no German Dream. There’s no Polish Dream. However, darn it, there’s an American Dream, and I’m going to struggle to be sure that dream is on the market to everybody,” Adams stated.
Watch the complete interview —
When Eric Leroy Adams arrived at Metropolis Corridor on his first day on the job, he carried with him the hopes and desires of his mom, Dorothy Mae Adams-Streeter: The girl who labored double shifts as a home cleaner, the girl who had solely a 3rd grade training, the girl whose image he carried into the voting booth on election day, and held up proudly when he took the oath of office simply after midnight on New 12 months’s Day.
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The attachment to his mom so profound – she died at 83 in the course of the main – that his reply to this query was no shock.
“What figures in your life impressed you to steer a lifetime of public service?” Kramer requested.
(credit score: CBS2)
“It was simply my mother. She was an incredible lady. Each time I consider how little we had, however how a lot she gave to everybody within the neighborhood, if you happen to had been a member of the family, that was in want of one thing, you knew you would come down and see Miss Adams, and it simply confirmed me at an early age that it’s good to give,” Adams stated. “We should be dwelling examples of what we would like our youngsters to be. As a result of I watched her, and I carried out what she needed me to be. She didn’t simply say Eric, I would like you to all the time be there, and provides again for individuals. She lived it. And I duplicated what I noticed her do.”
And though Eric Adams says he was impressed by Dr. Martin Luther King, by the Rev. Herbert Daughtry – who satisfied him to grow to be a police officer – he retains coming again to Dorothy Mae Adams-Streeter, who took him into the voting sales space in 1977 when the-then Manhattan borough president was on the poll, hoping to grow to be town’s first Black chief govt.
“She positioned my hand on Percy Sutton’s identify and he or she stated ‘You recognize, I would like you to know the importance of this second… This is a crucial second. I would like you to the touch his identify.’ Little did I do know what she was instilling in me. And when you consider it, it brings you chills, that she impressed me the chance that, you recognize, I may grow to be the mayor of town of New York. That’s simply wonderful,” Adams stated.
He stated that was a turning level. He went on to grow to be a police captain, state senator, Brooklyn borough president. And now, Dorothy Mae Adams-Streeter, your son is the one hundred and tenth mayor of town of New York.
We’ll have Marcia full interview with Adams on CBS Information New York tonight at 8:30 p.m.
