Some of the residents of Assembly District 78 showed up asking for change, while others voiced their frustration.

 

Despite erratic weather conditions of wind and frigid temperatures, a group of Shanequa Charles’ supporters joined the long-time community activist for a rally on Fordham Plaza in Belmont, close to the Fordham Manor border, early Sunday afternoon, Nov. 14, in hopes of hearing she would be throwing her hat in the ring to win the A.D. 78 seat, and they were not disappointed.

 

Charles formally announced that she will, indeed, be running in the primary election set for June 28, 2022, to fill the District 78 seat currently held by Democratic Assemblyman José Rivera whose current term ends on Jan. 1, 2023. Charles hopes to replace the incumbent assemblyman who has held the seat since 2001, has served as both deputy majority whip and assistant majority whip, and prior to that, was a city council member for District 15 from 1987 to 2000, and assembly member for District 77 between 1982 and 1987.

 

Although Charles has fallen short before in her attempts as a write-in candidate, she is confident that an upset can happen in 2022. She ran in the Democratic Primary in June 2020 to represent District 78. According to Ballotpedia, she withdrew her candidacy before the election.

 

Charles disputes this, telling the Norwood News, “I never withdrew. Once knocked off the ballot the second time, I went full steam ahead with a write-in campaign that garnered me being written in on ballots all across The Bronx.” She added, “I’ve got to figure out how to change that because I would never fold on [the] community.” Write-in ballots in that election, according to Ballotpedia, accounted for 1.4 percent of the total votes cast.

 

“One of the things that absolutely qualifies me for this position is, I’ve been in this community for 42 years,” said the advocate for making public transit free. “I know the issues very deeply as an activist and an organizer of housing, criminal justice, education and maternal rights. In addition to that, I also work on City, State, and federal level legislation,” she said. “I also have a passion for policy.”

 

Rivera won last year’s general election with 86.7 percent of the vote, seeing off Republican candidate, Michael Dister. He won the primary that year with 83.1 percent of the vote, beating Francisco Spies.

 

Less than a-year-ago, Rivera found himself embroiled in some Democratic Party controversy. The NY Post reported that he landed himself in the hot seat for recording and ultimately leaking footage from an annual pre-legislative assembly meeting, the type usually held in private at a local Albany hotel but held on Zoom last year due to the pandemic. It included some heated exchanges between Bronx Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (A.D. 83) and Brooklyn Assemblyman Charles Barron (A.D. 60).

 

When Rivera was revealed as the leaker, because his face appeared in the corner of the Zoom meeting screen image, he didn’t deny leaking the video to the Post reporter, saying, “The people have a right to see us in action in the Assembly.” Meanwhile, party officials reportedly considered expelling him for the leak, likely because the gathering was not an official, public meeting in the assembly chambers.

As it stands, ahead of any potential changes which redistricting may cause, following Census 2020, District 78 broadly covers an area running from Fordham Manor in the West of the borough through Bedford Park, Belmont, the New York Botanical Garden and Bronx Zoo.

 

As per Charles, District 78 is a pretty wide net that stretches from 187^th Street all the way to Sedgwick Avenue. “There are many different areas [of the district] in which I’ve worked, and not only is it in the political arena, but it’s also with the people that are supposed to be driving the legislation, so it’s different,” Charles said.

 

During the rally, which was attended by about 25 to 30 people, the candidate said her legislative priorities were typically determined by the needs of the community members she hopes to serve. She said she also believes that her experience working on “results-based legislation,” will influence other politicians to work with her.

 

Bronxite, Hiawatha Collins, 53, shares Charles’s vision. He agrees that representation matters, especially when fighting a system that he believes is built on structural racism and white supremacy. “She has done things in the community when nobody else has,” said Collins.

 

“For instance, as we heard today, during COVID, she opened up Miss Abbie’s Place. It was a safe place for anyone within a community, especially for the youth, to go to.” Collins added, “She provided food pantries out of there. She was in the community during the ‘riots’ right here on Fordham Road, trying to make sure that people were safe. She is of the community, and she’s about it. She’s generous, she’s authentic, she’s real, and she wants some real systemic change for the people.”

 

Although Collins called it “Miss Abbie’s Place,” he was actually referring to Miss Abbie’s Kids, Inc., a community center Charles started in honor of her late mother. The facility, which is located at 2477 Webster Avenue in the Fordham Heights section of the Bronx was named after Abbie Watson, who passed away from lung cancer nine years ago.

 

Charles said she firmly believes that issues like housing security, prison reform, universal healthcare, and eradicating the maternal mortality rate are all major problems affecting communities of color.

 

As she addressed the crowd, Charles said that over the course of 26 years, she had successfully secured more than 2.1 million rent-stabilized housing units for low-income residents throughout the Bronx. She also said she led a movement to get State and federal level criminal justice legislation passed that she said could potentially free over 180,000 people from correctional institutions across the country.

 

We asked Charles if she could provide further details on which legislation she was referring to. “First, to secure the 2.1 million rent-stabilized housing units for Bronxites, I was a leader with the organization, CASA, working on housing issues a few years back,” she said. “My task was to organize and lobby the legislation to renew the rent-stabilization laws that were about to expire, by having hundreds of meetings, testifying at City Hall, organizing tenant associations and not ever taking a ‘No’.”

Hip-Hop artist and criminal justice reform activist, Mysonne Linen, was on hand at the rally to publicly endorse Charles. He said low voter turnout throughout the region leaves him wanting to see a plan of action to address that.

 

“You see how early she is in announcing her campaign,” said Mysonne. “She understands. She did this before, and she realizes [what] strategy is; you have to raise funds, you have to get the right connections, you have to get the right people to back you.”

 

He continued, “You got to kiss babies, you got to knock on doors, you got to make sure that your plan for this community is right. You got to make sure that everyone is aware of what it is.”

 

A resident of Highbridge in the Bronx, Mysonne, himself, said he has been involved in social justice issues, helping communities that are often marginalized and excluded. He said he is optimistic that, like him, Charles will continue to fight the “good fight”. “There are things that you have to do to get voters in,” said Mysonne. “And I think Shanequa understands that.”

 

Although the June 2022 primaries are more than 7 months away, it’s clear the Charles camp is already in campaign mode. When asked why she should get the vote of the people of A.D. 78, Charles said, “I have an innate ability to understand what the issues are because I face the same issues,” she said. “And not only that, I also understand how to get to the solution. So, that’s a big thing that makes me.”

 

*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.