Mayor Cory Booker of Newark will visit Ithaca to speak at the State Theater at 7 p.m., Wednesday, 28 January. Ithaca's own Samite will contribute musical performance to the evening.
Mayor Booker is African-American and the son of civil rights activists. Like Barack Obama, Mayor Booker was a community activist before entering politics.
In 1999, Mr. Booker undertook a 10-day hunger strike in a Newark housing project known as a drug haven. The effort won increased police patrolling of the area. The next year, he lived in a motor home in various depressed and crime-ridden sections of Newark, publicizing and bringing remedy to neglected problems.
Mr. Booker's political message, like Mr. Obama's, is one of individual and community authority: a call for hope, and to action.
Mr. Booker's appearance in Ithaca is in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Ithaca Youth Bureau. His presentation at the State is entitled "Bridging Racial and Cultural Divides, and the Role that Youth Plays."
Tickets are $10 and are available at http://www.stateofithaca.com/.
Stephen Burke
for Ithaca Blog
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