Gov. Deval L. Patrick and wife Diane will be in Brooklyn, N.Y., Saturday for the official renaming of a Bedford-Stuyvesant street in honor of the first lady's late grandfather, Bertram L. Baker, the first African-American to be elected to political office from New York City's largest borough.
Diane Patrick, left, and her husband, Gov. Deval L. Patrick, are shown here in a November 2010 AP file photo. The couple will be in Brooklyn, N.Y., today to honor Diane Patrick's late grandfather, who will have a street named after him.Gov. Deval L. Patrick and Diane Patrick are scheduled to be in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Saturday for the official renaming of a Bedford-Stuyvesant street in honor of the first lady's late grandfather, Bertram L. Baker, who was the first African-American to be elected to political office from New York City's largest borough.
Massachusetts' first family is expected to gather at 3 p.m. on Jefferson Avenue, a stretch of which will be renamed in honor of Baker, whose 1948 election to the New York State Assembly made him Brooklyn's first black politician.
Baker, who died in 1985, rose through the ranks of the Democratic Party to become the majority whip in Albany, where he spent more than two decades representing the interests of his Brooklyn constituents.
Baker, an accountant by trade, was born in 1898 on the Caribbean island of Nevis and came to the U.S. in 1915. He later went on to become U.S. Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue for the income-tax division in Brooklyn.
Diane Patrick grew up in Bed-Stuy, as the neighborhood is commonly called, the nation's single largest African-American neighborhood. Patrick, an attorney, has cited her Brooklyn upbringing in a "proud" West Indian family that valued education and success. And after Saturday's ceremony, the section of Jefferson Avenue between Tompkins and Throop avenues will formally be known as “The Bertram L. Baker Way” in honor of her Caribbean-born grandfather.
The New York State Legislature voted to rename that stretch of Jefferson Avenue last year. Baker's grandchildren will be joined by other relatives, supporters and neighborhood residents for the ceremony, part of the Jefferson Avenue Block Association's annual block party.
“Bertram Baker pioneered the way for black Brooklyn elected officials, such as myself,” New York City Council Member Al Vann said.
Material from Statehouse News Service, the New York Daily News and Caribbean Financials was used in this report.
THE MAP BELOW shows the approximate stretch of Jefferson Avenue in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood that will be renamed after the grandfather of Massachusetts first lady Diane Patrick:
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