Meet Community Leader Ed Powell

Ed Powell may be a soft-spoken man, but that’s only because he lets his actions speak loudly. A resident of Flatbush for over 50 years and a community leader for over 30, “Captain” was kind enough to take time out of his day as Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs’ Community Liaison to speak with me at her Nostrand Avenue office about growing up singing on corners in Memphis, his concerns about the lack of youth services in our area, and what he says to those in both his African-American and Muslim communities who question his closeness with the NYPD.

You seem to be active in so many aspects of this community. If someone attends a meeting somewhere, you’re bound to show up. Can you briefly describe the positions you hold?

Over a period of years this happened. I’m President of an organization called the UMMA Group--it must be 25 years old now. It’s a nonprofit, operates mainly in North Flatbush. It started as a civilian patrol working in cooperation with the 70th Precinct just to reduce crime within the precinct boundaries.

At that time, when we first started, it was kind of crazy up there. It was the crack epidemic, gunshots every night and every day. There was a little public space at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Woodruff, and at that time it was like a meeting place for selling and buying drugs, it was a dumping ground for everything from tires to refrigerators to what have you, and working with people in the community and other local organizations like CAMBA and Community Board 14 and, of course, elected officials and the police department, we were able to get that area cleaned up and now it’s a public park called UMMA Park.

Well, that’s one thing. I’m also First Vice-Chair of Community Board 14, President of the 70th Precinct Community Council, and Community Liaison for Assemblywoman Jacobs.

UMMA’s still active?

We’re still active. Our membership is nowhere near what it was back then. I guess the need for that sort of thing has sort of diminished. We still do patrols in the north end of Flatbush, we help out up here on Friday nights because it’s mainly an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood and everyone’s in for Shabbos. So we patrol up here.

How long have you been Community Liaison for the Assemblywoman?

I’ve been working for her about 11 years. We’ve been friends for more than 20 years. She’s like family. She’s just like a younger sister. She’ll like that I said younger sister [laughs]. She looks out for me--it’s not like I’m an employee. We’re real family.

What do you do as Community Liaison?

My job is mainly to keep the Assemblywoman aware of the needs of constituents in the community and, on the other side, make the people who live in the community aware of what the Assemblywoman can do for them, what is available through our office to the community.

Could you talk about the 70th Precinct Community Council--what its relationship is with the precinct and the NYPD?

The council provides a monthly forum for people in the community to come out to interact and exchange ideas the precinct commanding officer and specialized units--Community Affairs, Narcotics, Burglary--we have them all at our meeting. We also have the Youth Officer or Community Affairs people who interact with young people who come. That’s the general role of the Precinct Council, to provide that forum. Not to have people come and be preached at, but to come and make complaints, compliments, whatever.

Are the officers of the council elected?

We are elected. Each year, we have elections. To become a member of the council, you need to attend three meetings within a year and that’s it. You’re a member and you can vote. We keep pretty accurate records of attendance and, hence, we know who the membership is.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis Presley’s town. I was born in 1940 and moved here permanently in about 1958 to Flatbush. I’ve lived in Flatbush now most of my life, although I can’t quite get used to, even after all these years, the New York vibe. Coming from down there, people say “Good morning! How are you?” Up here, you say good morning and people say, “What?!” [laughs].

What brought you to New York?

I went to part of high school in Memphis, I came to New York in the 10th grade, went to Erasmus, went back to Memphis and finished high school down there. And in high school, one of my closest buddies was a guy named Isaac Hayes.

The singer Isaac Hayes?

We used to sing together in high school. We sang in a boys’ choir and then in like a quartet in high school. I’ve lived so many lives. I was a singer and songwriter at that time. I wrote a couple tunes that sold over a million copies. One was called Keep on Dancing. My group recorded it and we sold a few copies, but a British group called the Gentrys picked it up and they really sold a lot of records with it. Another one I wrote was I Don’t Have to Shop Around.

Not the Smokey Robinson song.

No. That was Shop Around. This was I Don’t Have to Shop Around. That was recorded by a group called the Mad Lads out of Memphis and did very very well. I didn’t do particularly well because at that time, all we cared about--including Isaac--was getting out and singing and meeting girls, and when it came down to contracts and all that, they said, “Sign here” and we signed. So we, like so many other people, got kinda ripped off. Nevertheless, it was a good experience. I did very well. Ike went on to do well.

As you might have heard, he passed away a few years ago. Maybe three, four years ago, he had come to New York to perform at Prospect Park and he called me. He said, “Ed, I’m not feeling good, man. You gotta come and see me. I’d really like to talk to you.” So I went to see him backstage and he said to me, “Kinda keep an eye on me, man. I don’t trust these people around me.” He was very, very sick. That was the last time I saw him.

Is that what brought you to New York--singing?

After we recorded Keep on Dancing, my girlfriend at the time, her father lived in St. Albans. So she left and came to New York to visit her father. I was so heartbroken. My father also lived in New York, in Brooklyn, so zip! I came to New York.

Actually I came with this premise that I was going to go to college in New York, but in my heart I knew why I was coming--to be with Estella, my girlfriend. Never actually went to real college. I used to go to Brooklyn College and sit in on classes. At that time, you could just walk on campus, sit in class. I used to do schoolwork, but I never got any credit for it because I never formally enrolled. I was just this guy. They’d give me assignments and everything. So, that was why I came to New York.

And what got you started in community activism?

Well, UMMA is an Arabic word that basically means “community,” and I’m Muslim. At the time, there were five or six Muslim families who lived in the Flatbush community. We used to meet each day for our prayers. And, after prayers, we’d sit and talk about the community, how things were--they were pretty bad--and how we could improve the quality of life for people, including our own families, of course.

The first thing we came up with was a civilian patrol. At that time, we didn’t work with the cops. We were sort of vigilante-type guys. We all dressed in these camouflage outfits. We looked like an invading army or something. And we used to carry weapons. We had these big knives like this [gestures that they were about 8 or 10 inches long] we used to walk around with and the cops didn’t bother us. I guess they realized what we were doing and we needed something to deter the bad guys from killing us. Fortunately, we never had to use those for hurting anybody. But they did sort of give us status in the criminal community.

We started patrolling the streets. At the time, Caledonian Hospital was active, and we’d walk the nurses to the bus stop and train station at night. We’d escort children home from school. We’d go to the store for elderly people in the community. Anything we could do to earn what, in Arabic, is called Barkakat, or blessings. That’s what it was all about--just earning blessings.

From the patrols it grew to youth services. First we got this retired marine captain--his name was Ice Foster--and Ice would take the kids to Prospect Park and drill them, military drills, they loved it. It was only about 15 kids at first, but then other kids got interested. We ended up organizing a softball team, a basketball team, a touch football team, and it grew and grew to the point where we had leagues. Many of these kids were from very troubled families. So we were kind of like a beacon to them, as well as a fun thing to do. Many of them went on to do quite well and, wow, that’s a great feeling.

I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but as a Muslim and as someone who works regularly with the NYPD, what are your feelings about the strain the recent incident involving Commissioner Kelly has put on that relationship?

Well, I have to qualify what I would say about that because Commissioner Kelly is a very dear friend and has been for many years. I don’t think that he has or had any intentions or that he verbalized anything that would be harmful to Muslims or anybody else.

What I’ve seen of him over the years is that he’s a very even-handed person. I’ve never seen any evidence of any kind of bias, whether religious or racial or otherwise. You’ll hear people yell and scream, and they have a right to do that. I don’t blame them, but I know the man. He is nothing like what we are currently seeing portrayed in many media outlets.

As far as my relationship as a Muslim with other people and other groups, one of the things that sets the UMMA Group as well as myself apart from what people typically see as Muslims or Islam is the fact that our whole focus, and my whole focus in my life, is on helping other people, not helping other Muslims.

We have a very unique relationship with Flatbush Shomrim. They are our brothers, and I really mean that. We work together on so many different projects. The young man who was missing and we found that he was murdered…we scoured Prospect Park bush by bush all night. I was out there with my team, Shomrim was out there, as well as other groups.

Years ago, on St. Pauls Place and Church Avenue, a Korean merchant was sort of attacked by a militant group of mainly African Americans because they claimed that he had attacked a black woman in the store. It was a greengrocer--it’s still there. The night that it supposedly happened, I was on Church Avenue with my patrol partner. We went over and looked at the whole situation and got an ambulance for the woman. We found out that the man had never touched her. It was a setup. There was some blood on the floor--she had went in, threw herself on the floor--the blood on the floor we later found after the hospital analyzed it, it was menstrual blood.

This information, the analysis, was never made public except by us talking to people in the community. And this whole boycott developed out of this. There were daily boycott lines and meetings and so forth. We were invited to the meetings and they tried their best to get us involved--“Black folks gotta stick together” and this and that--but we refused to join it.

In fact, the mayor at the time held several public hearings about this. I spoke at one at Erasmus, and I remember part of what I said to the mayor was that in this community, what we really need is an opportunity to develop the people’s latent human potential. We don’t need you to just throw money at the community, we need programs to help the community to develop. What we don’t need is groups like that coming in destroying the morale of the community, destroying people’s lives, turning neighbors against each other and, at the same time, claiming that they’re there to help protect people.

The boycotts were awful. They called people all kinds of names if they even looked like they were going go in the store and shop. It reached a boiling point where one day, my partner and I--he was a big guy--we kicked the barricade down and we told them, “You get out of our neighborhood. This is enough.” The guy who ran the group has past on now, his name was Sonny Carson. CAMBA worked with us, the community board, other elected officials also, to get them out of our neighborhood. And we were successful.

Do you see any response from either the African-American community or the Muslim community to your work with the police or your work with the Jewish community? Is that something you still get flack about?

I get a lot of flack. “How can you work with these cops, with these pigs?” But anyone who has a clear understanding of Islam realizes that Islam is about peace. It’s about order, you know?

I was interviewed once on Tavis Smiley’s show and he asked me a question. He said, “You look like a black man. How can you work with the police against other black people?” I corrected him. I said, “First of all, I am a black man, and I don’t work with the police against other black people. I work with the police against criminals. If they’re black and they’re criminal, yeah, I’m working against them. And if we as black people consider the police our enemy, then why is that the first number we call when we get in trouble? Why would you call your enemy to come and help you?” His mouth flew open and he could not respond. I pose that same question to anyone who questions what I do in that regard.

I don’t feel like I’m working with an enemy. I feel like I’m working with an organization that is trying to make life better for people in general. Sure there are bad apples, as they say, but that’s just human nature.

And I get the same thing from some misguided Muslim brothers and sisters about working closely with Yahud, as they say, Jewish people. I work with everybody. If it’s about making things better, I’m your guy. I don’t care about anything--what you look like or anything else--if it’s gonna make things better, I’m your guy.

As someone who’s been here so long, and been involved in the community so long, what do you think about the changes in this area and the direction it’s headed?

Well, I’m an old guy and I’ve seen it change several times. The way I see it now, I think it’s positive. New immigrants are moving into the area and sort of becoming acclimated not so much to American life, but to Brooklyn life. Brooklyn has a life of its own--ask Marty Markowitz, he’ll tell you. I see it as a good thing. Having seen changes like this in the past, things, in my opinion, have only gotten better. For people. I don’t know enough to say that businesses are doing better or more poorly or what, but as far as the general population, I see positive change.

Is there anything you’d like to see happen that’s not happening?

I’d like to see more youth-oriented facilities and activities. I heard people say that--not my boss, but elected officials--say that kids don’t vote. It’s a shame that they take that attitude, because young people are the foundation of this whole society.

What I see happening with young people now is distressing because I think not enough attention and not enough focus is being placed on their development. Young people are kind of being overlooked, both in the home and in general.

One of the things UMMA Group has done over the years is focus on young people. As a crime-fighting organization, we’ve had to. We get out on the corners and we talk with them and we hang with them and try to get a sense of what’s really bothering them and what they really want. And part of my job is relaying that to the Assemblywoman and other organizations. I’m on the Youth Services Committee of CB14, and I work closely with the 70th Precinct Youth Officer.

When you think back on your years here, are there any memories that particularly stand out in your mind about the area?

Well, we were talking about young people a moment ago, and some of the things that are deeply ingrained in my head are memories of young people who I’ve had the pleasure of working with and helping to sort of redirect.

There was a young man who used to hang out in the area where UMMA Park is now, and every day I’d see him and talk to him. He was using drugs heavily. I won’t say his name, but if his name was Jack, we used to call him Battery Jack because this guy would steal car batteries at night and he’d go and sell them. He was a young guy and every day we’d go talk to him and talk to him and talk to him.

Then, I didn’t see him for a long time. Everyone assumed he was in jail or something. One day, he saw me on Ocean Avenue--they call me Captain because that’s my rank in the UMMA patrols--and I heard someone yelling, “Captain! Captain!” He has this card in his hand and he’s trying to show me. “Look! Look! Captain!” And this guy was now a student in college and he was showing me his college ID. He said, “Thank you,” and he hugged me and said, “Thank you for staying on my case, man.” That’s so rewarding. There are 25, 30 stories like that.