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10 things you should know about the Democratic Party vice chairman with J’can roots
Jamaican-American New York State Assembly Member, Michael Blake
News
February 28, 2017

10 things you should know about the Democratic Party vice chairman with J’can roots

KINGSTON, Jamaica — What is commonly now known about Bronx Assemblyman Michael Blake, who was elected as one of the vice chairs in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over the weekend, is that he is of Jamaican parentage.

Read: Son of Jamaican immigrant is vice chairman of Democratic Party

However, news website NewsAmerica, has identified additional facts about Blake and developed a list of top ten things you should know about the assemblyman.

Here are the 10 facts:

1: Michael Blake was born on Christmas Day in 1982 in the South Bronx, NY to Jamaican parents who were born in St Ann and St Andrew and then moved to the United States in the 1970’s.

2: His father, Headly Blake, was a hospital maintenance supervisor while his mother, Hilary, went from being homeless to working 40 years at a manufacturing plant in New Jersey while raising four boys.  His parents named him, the youngest of seven children, after Michael Manley — son of Jamaican hero Norman Washington Manley — and another hero Alexander Bustamante.

3: Blake attended New York City Public School PS 79 and went on to attend and graduate from Northwestern University with a degree in Broadcast Journalism.

4: Blake got a job after college as an associate producer at Comcast SportsNet in Chicago when the network launched. He left and later moved to Michigan where he ran three campaigns for the state House of Representatives; all three were successful. After the Democrats took the majority in the Michigan state House, Speaker Andy Dillon asked Blake to serve on his Cabinet, where he was the Director of External Affairs.

5: In 2006, he attended the Yes We Can leadership program, under then-Senator Barack Obama’s staff in Washington, DC. In March 2007 Blake accepted a job on the Obama presidential campaign as the Deputy Political Director and Constituency Outreach Director in Iowa. Over the next year-and-a-half, he campaigned for Obama in South Carolina, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi and Pennsylvania, finally ending up back in Michigan as the campaign’s Deputy Director and Political Director and was later named Associate Director of Public Engagement & Deputy Associate Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House after Obama won the 2008 election.

6: He served as the National Deputy Director of Operation Vote for President Obama’s 2012 re-election and served in the White House as the Deputy Associate Director for African-American state and local and elected officials and minority business outreach.

7: In 2013, he served as the Campaign Manager for Reshma Saujani for New York City Public Advocate and also helped to found the Atlas Strategy Group, which focuses on policy issues for communities of color.

8: In 2014, he was elected to the New York State Assembly from the South Bronx district despite the fact that The Bronx Democratic Party did not support his candidacy and tried to state he was not actually a resident of The Bronx. Despite the setbacks, Blake won the Democratic primary in the NYS 79th Assembly district over five other candidates with nearly 92 per cent of the votes.

9: In 2015, Blake was sworn-in for his first term in the New York State Assembly to represent constituents in the Concourse Village, Morrisania, Melrose, Belmont, Claremont and East Tremont in The Bronx. He currently serves as the Chair of the Subcommittee on Mitchell-Lama.

10: In 2016, he was named a Fall Fellow at the Harvard University Institute of Politics and on Feb 25 2017, he was elected as vice-chair of the DNC.

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