09/20/2025
The latest assault by the ‘board’ on our community is to lie about the history of the Sixth Street Center (as we know, the erasure of history can be a potent weapon in a struggle). Now that they have fired Alfred and Howard, they are trying to erase/disappear their—and Annette Averette’s—47 year history of accomplishment for the Center and our community. They are saying that Howard was not a founder of the Center in the late 1970’s (he was, along with Maria Cruz and Alfred Robinson, with Annette joining a few years later). When I pointed out to Board member Sarah Johnson, that the wonderful mural featuring Lower East Side and other political histories, was painted for the Center at Howard’s invitation, Board member Sarah Johnson said that Howard had nothing to do with it. This is NOT what artists have to say! (I know all of the artists who were made that marvelous mural and have heard their story, which matches Howards’. Just the fact that important documentation of our neighborhood struggles is treated with such disrespect by this Board—not to mention the disrespect with which they have treated the initiator and organizer of so many important campaigns and programs—shows how out of touch with our community the present Board is and why they should NOT be leading such a precious institution that the Sixth Street Community Center is and has always been. REINSTATE HOWARD, ALFRED & ALL FIRED STAFF NOW! THE BOARD MUST RESIGN AND ALLOW A NEW BOARD THAT REPRESENTS THE COMMUNITY, TO LEAD THE SIXTH STREET CENTER.
