Memories Still Burn in Bensonhurst Over the Death of Yusuf Hawkins

For many of us, the murder of  Yusuf Hawkins —a 16-year-old Black kid shot to death while a surrounded by a mob of young Whites, who were not much older—was a defining moment in our developing political consciousness. The image of Hawkins's father Moses Stewart—and the grace and integrity that he carried himself with in the aftermath of his son's death, stays with me. Public Enemy's "Fight the Power"—already one of the anthems of another summer ("sound of the funky drummer") became even more so.  The organizing energy of that moment helped elect New York City's first Black mayor and made many of us want to tell the truth of our stories as artists, journalists and scholars.
WNYC's Jim O'Grady remembers.