Athletes - Cory Booker

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	Athletes - Cory Booker

Cory Booker is a New Jersey Democratic politician and former Newark, New Jersey Councilman and community activist who in 2002 ran for mayor of Newark against Sharpe James and is running again in the 2006 elections. Booker is a graduate of Stanford, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale Law School.

Background

The son of civil rights activists who integrated an all-white neighborhood in suburban northern New Jersey, Booker traveled west to study at Stanford University. He played varsity football - he was an All-American - and was elected to the council of (four) presidents. While he was there he ran a local crisis hotline and organized help for youth in East Palo Alto from Stanford students.

A good student, he won the Rhodes Scholarship and studied at Oxford University. He became a friend of Lubavitcher Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. He became the President of a Jewish group to signify his commitment to end tensions between Jews and African-Americans.

After Oxford, he obtained a law degree from Yale University and while there started and operated free legal clinics for poor people near Yale.

After law school Booker returned to New Jersey. He served as Staff Attorney for the Urban Justice Center in New York and Program Coordinator of the Newark Youth Project. Since 1998 he has lived in Brick Towers, a notorious public housing project in Newark's Central Ward. Booker organized tenants there to fight for improved conditions.

As a councilman

In 1998 Booker won an upset victory, beating an unorganized four-term incumbent to get elected to the Newark City Council, a council known for its corruption and hard-fought elections.

Once on the Council, Booker proved to be an unconventional public official. In 1999 he went on a 10-day hunger strike, living in a tent in front of one of Newark's worst housing projects, to protest open-air drug dealing. For five months in 2000 he lived in a motor home, parking on street corners known to be places where drug trafficking occurred.

He proposed a variety of Council initiatives that impacted housing, young people, law and order, and the efficiency of City Hall, but was regularly rebuffed by a resistant City Council and often outvoted 8-1.

Mayoral run

In 2002, rather than run for re-election as Councilman, Booker decided to run for Mayor of Newark. This pitted him against long-time mayor, Sharpe James. His campaign was ultimately unsuccessful. The academy award nominated documentary by Filmmaker Marshall Curry entitled Street Fight details his bid for mayor.

After concluding his service as a Councilman, Booker became the director of Newark Now, a grassroots nonprofit group, a partner at a Newark law firm, and a senior fellow at Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees at Teachers College, a member of the Executive Committee at Yale Law School and was formerly a member of the Board of Trustees at Stanford University.

As expected, Cory Booker announced on February 11, 2006 that he will be running for mayor again, an intention he made clear after his loss in 2002. The nonpartisan election will take place on May 9, 2006.

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