GRAND MARSHALS

Letitia “Tish” James is the 67th Attorney General for the state of New York. With decades of experience and a long record of achievements, she is a powerful, effective attorney and lifelong public servant. When she was elected in 2018, she became the first woman of color to hold statewide office in New York and the first woman to be elected Attorney General.

Lt. Governor Delgado was born and raised in Schenectady, NY and currently resides in Rhinebeck, NY with his wife and twin boys.

A graduate of Colgate University, Mr. Delgado earned a Rhodes Scholarship, and after returning home from Oxford, received a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Mr. Delgado spent the next 5 years pursuing a career as a hip-hop artist in LA, empowering young people through music.

Following that, he worked in the corporate space as an attorney focusing on complex commercial litigation.

These diverse experiences inspired Mr. Delgado to step into public service and work to empower all communities.

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, he represented New York’s 19th Congressional District – becoming the first person of color to represent Upstate NY in Congress.

While in Congress, Lt. Governor Delgado was frequently recognized as one of the most effective and bi-partisan representatives, working with colleagues from both parties at all levels of government, and getting 18 of his bills signed into law –10 under President Trump and 8 under President Biden.

Mr. Delgado was appointed in May of 2022 to serve as Lt. Governor and was elected to a full term in November of 2022.

As Lieutenant Governor, he serves as chair of the Hate and Bias Prevention Unit, oversees the Regional Economic Development Council, and was recently tasked with heading up the newly formed Office of Service and Civic Engagement.

Adrienne Eadie Adams is the Speaker of the New York City Council. Elected in January 2022 by

her colleagues, she leads the most diverse and the first women-majority Council in New York

City history as the first-ever African American Speaker. Elected to the City Council in

November 2017, she is also the first woman to represent District 28, which encompasses the

Queens neighborhoods of Jamaica, Richmond Hill, Rochdale Village, and South Ozone Park.

Under the leadership of Speaker Adams, the Council has been tackling long-standing inequities.

She led the lawmaking body to advance women’s health by passing legislative packages to

address persistent racial disparities in maternal health and expand access to abortion and

reproductive healthcare. The Council, under Speaker Adams’ leadership, also directed the largest

amount of municipal funding of any city in the nation to support direct access to abortion

healthcare for those without an ability to pay.

Speaker Adams has expanded support for crime victims in communities that experience high

levels of violence but are underserved by traditional victim services. She created a new $5.1

million budget initiative to fund community safety and victim services at the neighborhood level,

and secured funding to establish New York State’s first four Trauma Recovery Centers.

Speaker Adams and the Council prioritized addressing inequities in the city’s workforce, passing

legislative packages to confront the historic lack of diversity in the FDNY and gender- and race-

based pay disparities that impact municipal workers. Speaker Adams also helped establish the

CUNY Reconnect program that has helped thousands of working-age New Yorkers to return to

college in pursuit of a degree after leaving school.

Speaker Adams’ leadership has set a new tone for the Council’s leadership in addressing the

City’s housing crisis. Under her leadership, the Council approved over 40 land use projects in

2022, which will produce more than 12,000 units of housing, over 63% of which are affordable.

Adams also put forward an aggressive Housing Agenda with a Fair Housing Framework to

increase the equitable production of affordable housing development across the City, while

prioritizing deeper affordability, housing preservation, and homeownership.

During her first term in the Council, Speaker Adams secured a record level of funding for her

district, which had endured years of disparity and disinvestment, including investments in

schools, parks, libraries, housing, and sanitation services. As a member of the Budget

Negotiating Team, she championed funding for cultural institutions, health care, digital access,

child and adult literacy, community-based food pantries, small business assistance, as well as

Fair Futures, an initiative providing mentorship and services for foster care youth. During the

height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she fought to secure additional testing and vaccine sites in

her district, which lacked equitable resources despite having one of the highest COVID-19 case

rates in the entire City. While serving as Co-Chair of the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus

(BLAC) of the Council, Speaker Adams advocated for additional investments in foreclosure

prevention programs, CUNY’s research institutions, and many other community support

initiatives. Under her leadership, the City Council also funded the Education Equity Action Plan,

an initiative to implement a comprehensive K-12 Black Studies Curriculum for all students in

New York City’s public schools.

As Chair of the Committee on Public Safety, Speaker Adams shepherded passage of critical

reform legislation to improve police accountability and transparency. These included bills to end

qualified immunity (making New York City the first city in the nation to enact such a law);

require NYPD to document and report on vehicle stops with demographic breakdowns (race,

gender, etc.); and empower the Civilian Complaint Review Board to initiate investigations into

police misconduct. During her tenure as Chair of the Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public

Sitings, and Dispositions, she played a key role in advancing the plan to close Rikers Island.

Speaker Adams also passed legislation to reform the City’s tax lien sale to protect homeowners,

extend protections for fast food workers, require transparency on the Administration for

Children’s Services’ emergency removals of children, and return unused commissary funds to

formerly incarcerated New Yorkers.

Speaker Adams was raised in Hollis, Queens, as the daughter of two proud union workers. She

attended St. Pascal Baylon Elementary School and Bayside High School. After briefly studying

at CUNY’s York College, she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Spelman

College in Atlanta, Georgia, minoring in Early Childhood Development. Prior to serving in the

City Council, Speaker Adams worked professionally as a Corporate Trainer at several Fortune

500 companies, specializing in Executive Training, Telecommunications Management, and

Human Capital Management, and worked as a Childhood Development Associate Instructor,

training child care professionals to obtain their Child Development Associate credentials in

accordance with the standards set by the National Association for the Education of Young

Children.

Speaker Adams first entered public service as a member of Queens Community Board 12, the

second largest community board in the borough. She was appointed Chair of the Education

Committee, advocating for education equity and opposing school closures and co-locations. In

recognition of her leadership, Speaker Adams was elected to three consecutive terms as Chair of

Community Board 12, serving from December 2012 to November 2017. She advocated for

improved delivery of services, economic opportunities, and better quality of life in Southeast

Queens.

As a community advocate, Speaker Adams served in leadership positions for community-based

organizations and advisory committees. She was appointed by then Queens Borough President

Melinda Katz to the Queens Public Library Board of Trustees, overseeing a 62-branch institution

that maintained the highest circulation of any municipal library system in the country.

Additionally, she was appointed to the Local Planning Committee for the Jamaica Downtown

Revitalization Initiative and served as Co-Chair of the Jamaica NOW Leadership Council. In

these roles, Speaker Adams guided more than $150 million in funding and investments for

workforce and business development, education, health and wellness, housing, and transportation

for the Downtown Jamaica area.

Speaker Adams is an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, the first

sorority for Black college-educated women. She is also a longstanding member of the NAACP

and the National Action Network.

Speaker Adams is a wife, mother, and grandmother (“cool Nona”) within her beloved blended

family.

New York State Senator Cordell Cleare was raised in Harlem and her family has lived there for four generations.  Cleare’s activism and advocacy spans decades but peaked when she served as a tenant organizer and Chair of the New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning. In these years and civic leadership roles, she fought hard to protect children from the life-threatening dangers of lead paint, leading to shaping a significant public policy - The Childhood Lead Poisoning Law (2004).  This law is now a national model.  For nearly two decades, starting in 1997, she tirelessly served as Chief of Staff to Bill Perkins, during his time in the New York City Council and New York State Senate.  Senator Cleare is currently serving in her first term from District 30, representing Central Harlem, East Harlem (El Barrio), West Harlem, Upper Westside, Morningside Heights, Manhattanville, Hamilton Heights and Washington Heights neighborhoods.  Cleare is one of only two women to hold the seat.  The late Manhattan Borough President, Federal Court Judge and friend of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, was the first woman, winning the seat almost 60 years ago.  Both are the only black women elected to the New York State Senate from Manhattan.  Since first being elected, Senator Cleare has written nearly 300 bills, passed 83 of them in the Senate with over 30 now having become law.  She has introduced packages of bills such as “The Housing Is A Human Right Agenda” & “Eradicating Human Trafficking.”   

MARSHALS

Darcel Denise Clark became the 13th District Attorney for Bronx County on January 1, 2016.

She is the first woman in that position and the first African-American woman to be elected a

District Attorney in New York State. She was re-elected to her third term in November 2023.

District Attorney Clark’s mission is “Pursuing Justice with Integrity,” and in fulfilling that mission

she has restructured the Bronx District Attorney’s Office to reflect 21st Century prosecution,

focusing on assistance for victims, fairness to defendants, crime prevention and community

outreach. She created a Conviction Integrity Bureau, a Public Integrity Bureau, established a

Rikers Island Prosecution Bureau to decrease violence and corruption in the jails, and

enhanced services for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse.

District Attorney Clark pioneered alternative to incarceration initiatives through a new

Community Justice Bureau.

Prior to her election, District Attorney Clark served as an Associate Justice for the NYS

Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department; a NYS Supreme Court Justice in Bronx

County; and a Criminal Court Judge in Bronx and New York Counties. She spent more than 16

years on the bench.

District Attorney Clark is a lifelong Bronx, New York resident, raised in the Soundview Houses

and graduated from Harry S Truman High School. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in

Political Science from Boston College, where she serves as a member of the Board of Trustees,

and earned her law degree at the Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C.

District Attorney Clark returned home in 1986 to begin her legal career at the Bronx District

Attorney’s Office. She prosecuted drug felonies, violent crimes and homicides. District Attorney

Clark served as a Supervising ADA in the Narcotics Bureau and the Deputy Chief of the

Criminal Court Bureau. In 1999, she left the Office for her first judicial post.

District Attorney Clark is co-chair of Prosecutors Against Gun Violence, and a Board Member of

both the National District Attorneys Association and the District Attorneys Association of the

State of New York. She frequently addresses national and local legal organizations, including

the American Bar Association, the National Black Prosecutors Association and the New York

State and New York City Bar Associations, on a range of criminal justice topics.

New York City Council Member Yusef Salaam

In 1989, at just fifteen years young, Yusef Salaam was tried and convicted in the “Central Park Jogger” case along with four other Black and Latinx young men. The Exonerated Five spent between seven to 13 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit, until their sentences were overturned in 2002.

Over the past two decades, Yusef has become a family man, father, poet, activist and inspirational speaker. It has been his mission to educate the public about the impact of mass incarceration and police brutality rooted in our justice system, regularly advocating for criminal justice reform, prison reform and the abolition of juvenile solitary confinement and capital punishment. He works to restore humanity denied to those incarcerated and those downtrodden by the spiked wheels of justice.

A lifelong resident of Harlem, Yusef was victorious in the General Election for New York City Council (District 9) on November 7, 2023, with a clear mission in mind: to serve as a voice for the community and work towards creating a better future for all New Yorkers. His experiences in the criminal justice system are the inspiration behind him speaking up and advocating for those who are marginalized and forgotten by the powers that be.

Yusef’s transition to New York City Council is powered by the people and focused on building a coalition that represents the diverse voices of District 9. Yusef regularly reaches out to constituents of all ages and backgrounds, including long-time residents, young activists, and disenchanted residents. He believes in uniting our community and speaking to the systemic issues we face each day, to energize and activate those who are eager for change.

Yusef was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (2014) and is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from President Barack Obama (2016). More recently has shared his story and stance on current issues on CNN, MSNBC, REVOLT TV, NPR Atlanta, FOX and more. He authored his memoir Better, Not Bitter and is the co-author of Punching the Air.

An avid activist, Yusef is also a board member of the Innocence Project, founding member of Justice 4 the Wrongfully Incarcerated, and 25-year member of the Frederick E. Samuel Community Democratic Club.

On November 2nd, 2021, Vanessa L. Gibson was elected to be the 14th Bronx Borough President to serve the over 1.4 million residents and families that call the Bronx home.

A native New Yorker, Ms. Gibson began her career serving the people of the west Bronx. In January 2001, while a student at the University at Albany, Ms. Gibson joined the New York State Assembly Intern Program and was assigned to then-Assemblywoman Aurelia Greene. As an Intern, she worked on legislation for the Assemblywoman, attended meetings and met with constituents and community groups on behalf of the office.

Upon graduation, Ms. Gibson served as Legislative Aide, and then advanced to District Manager, overseeing the Bronx office. In this position, she was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the district office, supervising the staff and all administrative and constituent services. Ms. Gibson would serve as the District Manager for several years until Assemblywoman Aurelia Greene resigned from office in May 2009 after twenty-eight years in the Assembly. With community and family support, Ms. Gibson decided to run for the New York State Assembly and was elected to this position in a special election on June 2, 2009 to represent the residents and families of the 77th District in the Bronx.

Ms. Gibson served for two terms in the NYS Assembly and then ran for an open seat in the New York City Council in 2013, to replace the term-limited Council Member Helen Diane Foster. Ms. Gibson was elected to the New York City Council in November 2013.

As a Council Member, Ms. Gibson was a leader in education, affordable housing, public safety and criminal justice reform. Ms. Gibson was also an advocate for alternatives to incarceration, tenant protections, increased training for our police officers and held the distinction of being the first African-American woman chair of the New York City Council Public Safety Committee.

In 2017, she joined then-Council Member Mark Levine in passing the landmark Right to Counsel Legislation, which provides free legal representation for income-eligible tenants facing eviction in Housing Court. Ms. Gibson has also championed legislation mandating the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy create a ten-year food strategy for the City of New York that identifies food policies, access to healthier food opt ions, using community gardens, urban agriculture and access to Health Bucks to address food deserts.

In 2020, she announced her run for Bronx Borough President with a mission to move the Bronx forward with a focus on public safety, food equity, housing insecurity, health and wellness, gender equity, support for the LGBTQIA+ community and a myriad of other issues. Ms. Gibson won her primary election in June, the general election in November, and now proudly represents the borough of the Bronx as the first woman and African-American Bronx Borough President. Despite several challenges during the beginning of her first term, Ms. Gibson is optimistic for better days ahead in the Bronx, and is honored and thankful for the opportunity to serve in elected office for such a time as this.

Assemblymember Stefani L. Zinerman is a devoted public servant, committed to the rich and dynamic communities of Bedford-Stuyvesant and north Crown Heights. With a distinguished career that spans both government and nonprofits, she has been a force behind transformative initiatives in adult literacy and workforce development. As a member of the New York State Assembly, where she serves as Chair of the Subcommittee on Emerging Workforce and contributes to standing Committees on Aging, Labor, and People with Disabilities, Assemblymember Zinerman occupies a pivotal position. Her diverse committee engagements lay the foundation for her impactful work, driving significant legislation and cultivating inclusive job markets. Through her dedication, she empowers communities by prioritizing education and skill-building. A staunch advocate for equality, democracy, and community engagement, Assemblymember Zinerman's leadership across various committees and her establishment of local councils echo her profound commitment to a vibrant, just, and age-friendly New York. With an impressive record of achievements and an unwavering dedication, Assemblymember Stefani L. Zinerman persists in working towards a vision of building a stronger, more unified community, embodying the principles of equality and progress for all.

2023 grand marshals

2023 marshals