Mayor Eric Adams addresses the congregation at a memorial service for Dr. Hazel Dukes on March 12, 2025.
Michael Appleton/Mayoral Images Workplace
Leaders throughout New York Metropolis gathered in Harlem Wednesday to pay tribute to Dr. Hazel Dukes, a pivotal determine within the civil rights motion and a beloved chief recognized for her lifelong dedication to justice and equality, who died on March 1.
In a heartfelt homegoing service at Mom AME Zion Church attended by mates, household, and political leaders, Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul mirrored on Dukes’s legacy and the teachings she imparted to numerous lives.
“Ma Dukes was good to the last drop,” Adams stated. He inspired these current to “feel the heat of Mama Dukes when you are in a low place,” urging them to hold her spirit ahead of their on a regular basis lives.
A determine of inspiration and resilience, Dukes was an advocate for civil rights, making impactful contributions by way of organizations just like the NAACP and Head Begin, a program devoted to uplifting and supporting younger individuals in want.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams on the memorial service for Dr. Hazel Dukes in Harlem on March 12, 2025.Michael Appleton/Mayoral Images Workplace
Dr. Dukes was born and raised in Harlem, the place she grew to become a beacon of hope and empowerment. She was the primary feminine president of the NAACP’s New York State Convention and performed a major function in campaigns advocating for schooling, social justice, and neighborhood growth. Her management within the Head Begin program showcased her dedication to early childhood schooling, emphasizing the significance of nurturing the subsequent technology.
Hochul additionally paid tribute to Dukes, recalling their private connection that deepened following the lack of Hochul’s mom.
“Her life was a gift to all of us,” Hochul stated.
“I didn’t know that I now had about a thousand siblings,” she stated, referencing Dukes’s capability to make anybody really feel included and cared for, affirming her fame as “Mama” to many.
All through her life, Dr. Dukes’s ardour for activism prolonged into quite a few aspects of neighborhood organizing. She was fierce in her advocacy throughout tumultuous occasions, main efforts towards racial discrimination, police brutality, and for ladies’s rights. Her spirit echoed within the pulsating coronary heart of Harlem, a spot she diligently fought to uplift.
“She put drops in the Head Start program, drops in the NAACP, drops in uplifting young people,” Adams stated.
“When she gave advice to someone like me, she knew from where she spoke, because she had been in the trenches, on the front line,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated of Hazel Dukes.
The service highlighted tales from public figures and private mates who cherished their experiences with Dukes. Speaker after speaker contrasted her powerful however loving nature, typically humorously recounting her generally demanding however all the time supportive presence.
Many different attendees, together with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, echoed the sentiment that Dr. Dukes’s empathy and dedication to fostering unity amongst various communities had been amongst her biggest legacy.
“She wasn’t some kind of bystander through all of these years; she was active,” Clinton stated, noting that she helped launch Head Begin through the Johnson administration and was the primary Black prosecutor within the Nassau County District Legal professional’s workplace.
“When she gave advice to someone like me, she knew from where she spoke, because she had been in the trenches, on the front line,” she added.
Rev. Al Sharpton remembered Dukes as “the mother of the northern civil rights movement” who fought her life to fight racism within the New York Metropolis space. He urged the congregation to observe her instance to proceed combating oppression and the Trump administration’s actions.
“Hazel raised us to fight, and the generation behind us to keep the fight going, and we’ve got to fight,” Sharpton stated. “I don’t know how long we have to go, but I know that we owe it to Hazel to take these bigots out of the White House and return some dignity, and return some integrity, and return some level of respect. She raised us for this day. So she can get her rest now, because from one generation to another generation, she did her duty. The question is, what are we going to do with what she taught us?”
