Outside Governor Paterson’s Office on Third Avenue, Manhattan, between 40th and 41st streets, mid town, March 25.
New York Civil Liberties Union, March 25, 2009 – Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied today in front of Governor David Paterson’s Manhattan office, urging him and the State’s legislative leaders to enact a sweeping overhaul of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, the infamous mandatory-minimum drug sentencing scheme.
Speakers, “ including hip hop mogul and reform advocate Russell Simmons and the Reverend Calvin Butts of Abyssinian Baptist Church, “called on lawmakers to seize this historic opportunity to end the unjust and ineffective laws. Butts also is President of the the State University of New York College at Old Westbury, and Chairman and founder of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, an engine for $500 million in housing and commercial development in Harlem.
Some speakers recalled the arrest several years ago of Paterson in front of his office in protest of the laws.
This is a QUICKIE.
QUICKIES: Images, pictures, video, audio of a news story in the works to be published in the WORD. An earlier story by Frankie Garcia. He is working on an update.
Outside Governor Paterson’s Office on Third Avenue where he was arrested several years ago in a protest against the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Some protesters said that they showed up to remind what he did when he was a State Legislator.
Lots of news media there. Wonder how this will play on the Evening News?
Tags: NYCLU, Reverend Calvin Butts, Rockefeller Drug Laws, Russell Simmons