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District 29 names school for its strongest advocate

By Kathianne Boniello

It will never be easy to forget Cynthia Jenkins, a southeast Queens community and political activist who fought for her neighborhood with her own brand of outspoken feistiness and who died in October 2001 at age 77.

Southeast Queens and the Rosedale-based School District 29 made it officially impossible for Jenkins’ memory to fade Saturday morning with a ceremony rededicating her favorite elementary school, PS 37, in her honor.

The lengthy ceremony kicked off with a ribbon-cutting by students, school staff and the Jenkins family and culminated in several performances by students, who sang, danced and read poems written in the activists’ memory.

Jenkins’ son, the Rev. Joseph Jenkins, joked that he once asked his mother why PS 37 in Springfield Gardens was her favorite school, where she instituted a special teacher’s award and gave savings bonds to graduating students.

“I didn’t even attend this school,” he said, laughing. “Those in the community know this was my mother’s favorite school. She loved the community and she loved working with the children.”

Rev. Jenkins announced during the ceremony that the family would continue his mothers work, including the teaching award and savings bonds for PS 37, which will now also be known as “The Cynthia Jenkins School.”

Jenkins husband, Joseph, said simply: “I love Cynthia Jenkins, and I always will.”

Born in Nashville, Tenn. and raised in Louisville, Ky., Jenkins spent more than four decades living and working in southeast Queens and was the first black woman elected to represent the area.

Before spending 12 years in the Assembly on behalf of Jamaica, St. Albans, Springfield Gardens and Rosedale, Jenkins served southeast Queens as a librarian, community activist and advocate for civil rights. In 1969 she helped form the Black Librarians Caucus.

That same year Jenkins also founded the Social Concern Committee of Springfield Gardens Inc., an educational action program that grew over the years and gave rise to several other agencies.

School Board 29 President Nat Washington praised Jenkins’ individuality.

“She wasn’t your ordinary person,” he said. “She didn’t take the beaten path, she made the path as she walked.”

Michael Johnson, district administrator of School District 29, laughed as he recalled Jenkins’ style.

“I knew Mrs. Jenkins had a sense of humor because one night before a meeting started she pulled me aside and said ‘you know, I really like you,’” he recalled. “Once the meeting started, she let me have it. After it was over she came up to me and said: ‘I really do like you.’”

City Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans) said “Cynthia Jenkins always had clarity of purpose. Cynthia did a lot of different things to make sure the community was healthy.

“Continue in your own way to be an activist in the community,” he said. “I hope in a way this is a reclamation of our community.”

Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at [email protected] or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.