The now 37-year-old Rhodes Scholar whom that POV film “Street Fight” featured, beat state Senator Ronald Rice to become the first mayor of Newark in two decades. He won with 72 percent of the vote in a four-way race. The film featured the struggle Booker encountered in his first run against incumbent Sharpe James. Booker's bid to topple the organization that helped keep James in office for 20 years in the nation’s fourth poorest city attracted nationwide attention and $6.6 million in campaign donations, much of it from Wall Street backers. (Among cities of 250,000 or more, only Detroit, El Paso and Miami are poorer, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.)
Port of Harlem sponsored a special previewing of the show at the Alexandria Black History Museum. Don’t miss Port of Harlem’s next Washington area event: Building / Renovating Your Own Castle.