He is only the second African-American mayor in the history of New York: the former police officer and anti-racist unionist Eric Adams won hands down the mayor of the American megalopolis, an extraordinary journey for this child of a family poor man who had flirted with crime.
The elected 61-year-old Democrat crushed his Republican rival Curtis Sliwa as expected, winning nearly 67% of the votes. “Tonight, I made my dream come true and, with all my heart, I will remove the barriers that prevent you from achieving yours”, launched the new city councilor, all smiles, white shirt and thumbs up in front of his supporters gathered Tuesday evening in a hotel in Brooklyn.
This victory is in fact a consecration for Eric Adams, raised by disadvantaged parents from Brooklyn and Queens, who experienced a difficult youth marked by delinquency. He did not hide it during the campaign and even recalled it in his victory speech:
My mother did housework. I was doing the dishes. I was beaten by the police in their pre-trial detention cells, convinced that my future was already written. But from now on, I will be the person in charge of this borough, and of all the other boroughs because I became the mayor of New York
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“The little guy” who became a police captain
In tears after voting Tuesday morning in his hometown, Eric Adams felt that this election represented social revenge for the “little guy” he was in his youth and therefore for working class New Yorkers. His personal story will help give credit to his words.
Become a police officer when New York was a cutthroat in the 1980s, he spent 22 years there until the rank of captain. In 1995, he founded a union there which still fights against racism today. He then entered politics, elected local Democrat of the State and the city of New York, president of Brooklyn since 2014, a springboard towards the town hall.
Eric Adams is committed to being intractable against crimes and misdemeanors whose indicators have turned red in 2020 in New York. “We’re not just going to talk about security, we’re going to have security”, he promised.
Until the last hours of the campaign, he displayed himself as a defender of the middle and popular classes, but also as a close friend of the business circles of Manhattan, the world’s financial lung.
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Budget at $ 100 billion
The successor to the unpopular Bill de Blasio will manage the largest municipal budget in the United States: 98.7 billion dollars for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.
Eric Adams will also have control over the largest police force in the country (NYPD, 36,000 employees), whose reforms he will have to pursue, but without alienating his former powerful and unionized body of origin.
In a city that has paid a heavy price for the pandemic (34,000 dead), Eric Adams will also have to manage the return to normal of schools, offices and businesses. Also fight against glaring social inequalities, poor housing, poor infrastructure, climate risks. Finally shut down Rikers Island, a terrible overcrowded, ultra-violent and unsanitary prison.
In his speech last night, he called on his fellow citizens to unity: “We are so divided now that we no longer see the beauty of our diversity. Today we are wearing one and the same jersey, that of New York.”
Eric Adams is also very proud to have gone vegan in 2016 to treat his diabetes and has written a cookbook to convince African Americans to do the same.
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