With the Rev. Al Sharpton playing host in Harlem, the crowded field of Democratic candidates tried to sell themselves and inspire a battered city.
It was something of a familiar scene: One by one, the candidates running for mayor of New York City took a turn at the lectern at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s headquarters in Harlem to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday. Eric Adams talked about being a Black police officer and invoked another officer’s memory: the one who saved Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life after a stabbing in 1958. Raymond J. McGuire talked about how his goal was to get the Black community more than just “crumbs” when it comes to economic empowerment. And Andrew Yang recalled how he campaigned in Georgia in the U.S. Senate races with Martin Luther King III, who is now Mr. Yang’s campaign co-chairman. For three decades, lawmakers and would-be public servants have turned out at Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network in Harlem on the third Monday in January to spend a few minutes speaking about Dr. King’s legacy and to court the Black vote, trying to draw church-like shouts of approval from one of the toughest assemblages north of 110th Street. But this year’s ceremony felt different. The country was days removed from a riot on Capitol Hill aimed at overturning the results of an election in which Black voters played a pivotal role in delivering a victory for the Democratic candidate. New York City — once the center of the coronavirus pandemic and still reeling unevenly from its effects — is five months away from holding its most consequential mayoral primary election in a generation. With much of the mayoral campaign being conducted virtually, the Sharpton event was the first public gathering of many of the candidates, and many acknowledged the precarious moment, pledging to enact sweeping policies such as police reform, universal basic income and equity bonds for every child in New York City that would uplift the lives of the city’s most vulnerable.
