NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean American Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke and former New York City Mayor David N. Dinkins were among six honorees during Jamaica’s 57th Independence Anniversary Ball held in New York recently.
According to the Jamaican Independence Celebration Foundation, Inc., which hosted the event, the other honorees were Barbadian-born Justice Sylvia Hinds-Radix, lawyer Hettie Powell, Justine Skye, and Gregory Smiley.
The Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), which was among the sponsors of the annual gala, said it “continues to work closely with the Diaspora community.”
Congresswoman Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, attended New York City public schools, graduated from Oberlin College, and is a recipient of the prestigious APPAM/Sloan Fellowship in Public Policy and Policy Analysis.
Prior to being elected to the US House of Representatives, Clarke followed in the footsteps of her trailblazing mother, Dr. Una S.T. Clarke, in serving on the New York City Council, representing the 40th District in Brooklyn.
In succeeding her mother in the City Council, the Clarkes became the first mother-daughter succession in the history of the City Council.
As the representative of the 9th Congressional District of New York, congresswoman said she has dedicated herself to “continuing the legacy of excellence established by the late Shirley Chisholm,” the first African American woman and Caribbean American elected to the US Congress. The late Chisholm was the daughter of a Barbadian mother and a Guyanese father.
David Norman Dinkins, is a lawyer and author who served as the 106th Mayor of New York City, from 1990 to 1993.
He was the first and, to date, the only African American to hold that office.
On November 7, 1989, Dinkins was elected mayor of New York City, defeating three-term incumbent mayor Ed Koch and two others in the Democratic primary and Republican nominee Rudy Giuliani in the general election.
Dinkins was born in Trenton, New Jersey, graduated cum laude from Howard University, in Washington, D.C., with a degree in mathematics in 1950.
Justice Hinds-Radix was appointed as an Associate Justice of the New York State Appellate Division, Second Department, by Governor Andrew Cuomo, in November of 2012.
Prior to her appointment, Hinds-Radix served as Administrative Judge for Civil Matters in the Second Judicial District for three and a half years.
She was elected to the Supreme Court, Kings County (Brooklyn) in November of 2004 and served as a New York City Civil Court Judge, from 2002 through 2004, spending her first year in the Criminal Court of Kings County.
Hinds-Radix is the recipient of many awards, including The Gold Crown of Merit, which was conferred on her by the Governor-General of Barbados on that nation’s celebration of its 39th anniversary of its independence, one of the nation’s highest honors.
