Laurie Cumbo

(Her father had moved to the neighborhood in the 1940s.)

Laurie A. Cumbo (born February 4, 1975) is an American politician and Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

After graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School, she was accepted into and enrolled in Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia in 1997, inspired by the actions of characters on The Cosby Show and A Different World.

After receiving a degree in fine arts there, she received a master's degree in visual arts administration from New York University in 1999.

Based on her 1999 NYU graduate work and a trip to Bilbao, Spain, Cumbo founded and served as the executive director of the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts (MoCADA).

She told the New York Times's Local, "prior to [receiving her master's] I would say I was very inspired by the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. This museum created a whole economy for this particular city after its shipping industry died. It made Bilbao and the museum a must destination when visiting Spain. I know that MoCADA can do that for Brooklyn as well."

Originally based in a building operated by the Bridge Street AME church in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, the institution moved to its current location in the borough's gentrified Fort Greene section within the BAM Cultural District with the help of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Local Development Corporation, which included Bruce Ratner, the Barclays Center and Atlantic Yards developer, on its board.

From 2001 to 2011, Cumbo served as a graduate professor in the Arts and Cultural Management program at Pratt Institute's School of Art & Design.

Earlier, in April 2010, while head of MoCADA, she was quoted in the New York Times's Local with another remark regarding Jews.

She said, "I'm trying to figure out new ways to do what I want to do to grow the museum.... You have a Jewish children's museum, but you don't feel that there should be a black-centered museum?"

In 2012, the museum landed a $100,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to pay for a two-year program that brought monthly concerts to public spaces in nearby NYCHA Houses like Walt Whitman, Ingersoll, and Farragut in Fort Greene that drew crowds up to 500 or 600.

The following year, MoCADA launched another art performance series, Soul of Brooklyn, "a borough-wide celebration of the diverse arts and cultures of Brooklyn's African Diaspora".

In December 2013, one month before she was sworn in, a series of attacks took place targeting Jewish residents of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, totaling at least eight victims including children.

The attacks were alleged to be part of a trend of "knockout attacks", and antisemitism was cited by a number of community leaders, politicians and media outlets as a precipitating factor.

Following the attacks, Cumbo publicly expressed that her African American and Afro-Caribbean constituents had expressed fear of being "pushed out of their homes by Jewish landlords", and that resentment towards the Jewish residents of Crown Heights "offer possible insight as to how young African-American/Caribbean teens could conceivably commit a 'hate crime' against a community that they know very little about."

She wrote "I admire the Jewish community immensely.... I respect and appreciate the Jewish community's family values and unity that has led to strong political, economic and cultural gains. While I personally regard this level of tenacity, I also recognize that for others, the accomplishments of the Jewish community triggers feelings of resentment, and a sense that Jewish success is not also their success."

Her response was covered widely on blogs and in the New York press.

Cumbo's statements raised concerns among many residents, and in addition to other local media, the story was featured in local Jewish media outlets.

Cumbo later apologized to her constituents for her remarks, saying in a statement, "I sincerely apologize to all of my constituents for any pain that I have caused by what I wrote ... and I understand now that my words did not convey what was in my heart, which is a profound desire to bring our diverse communities closer together."

The next year she allocated thousands of dollars in district council money to a Crown Heights Orthodox Jewish community group.

In 2013, she moved into the 35th Council district to run for its city council seat.

By the end of August 2013, Cumbo's political campaign had received at least $80,000 from Jobs for New York PAC, a pro-development political action committee unpopular in an already rapidly gentrifying area.

In an AARP-sponsored discussion a week later she claimed she received no money from the Real Estate Board of New York (backers of Jobs for New York), and that they had given no contributions to her campaign.

Elected in 2013 in a crowded Democratic primary race, Cumbo, unchallenged by a Republican candidate, succeeded Letitia James.

She was handpicked to run by Brooklyn Congressman Hakeem Jeffries.

Cumbo's political leanings are in some ways more conservative than that of her predecessor, and has been the subject of other controversies.

She had previously denounced the practice and encouraged voters to blow the whistle on excessive corporate support of political campaigns during her campaign.

She did not appear at the public debate before the primary election for the council district seat on August 21, 2013.

Despite this, she won the council seat on a platform, in part, of expanding and developing arts and cultural tourism in the district and making improved use of public spaces including parks.

Her platform included "Investing in Economic Development, Strengthening Not-for-Profits and Service Employees, Reforming Education."

She was endorsed by Jeffries, New York State Assemblyman Walter Mosley, and the Working Families Party.

A Democrat, she served in the New York City Council for the 35th district from 2014 to 2021, which includes the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Prospect Heights, portions of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and Vinegar Hill.

She is the founder and first executive director of the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts.

Cumbo was ineligible to run in 2021 due to term limits.

Cumbo was born in Brooklyn, New York to Wilkins and Beverly Cumbo, the latter an opera singer, and raised in East Flatbush at a time when waves of people of Jewish descent were leaving and residents of African descent were arriving.

In May 2014, she was fined $7,868 by the New York City Campaign Finance Board for taking contributions above the limit from a group pushing for a ban on the horse-carriage industry.

She denied it again when confronted with the issue at a Brooklyn community board committee meeting in February 2015 although she had reportedly claimed to the Brooklyn Paper (at her 2013 victory party) that she would be more developer-friendly than her predecessor and that "[I]t would be almost malpractice to be a councilmember and to have no relationship with the developers who are building this community."

In 2017, Cumbo, now an incumbent, again defeated one of her 2013 opponents, Ede Fox, in the Democratic primary, 58% to 42%.

She defeated then-Green Party candidate Jabari Brisport and Republican Christine Parker in the general election.

Cumbo is ineligible to run in 2021 due to term limits.