The murder of Emmett Till inspired Sister Nzingha Abena (1939-2019) to devote her life to working for Justice, Peace and Equality for all. She worked in poverty programs set up in 1968 to help secure jobs for inner city youth and provide day care centers. She volunteered in the Public Schools from 1962-1973. She eventually found her calling as an educator. She attended Fordham University on full scholarship, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Education/Social Science and a Master’s in Education. She taught at P.S. 113K, P.S. 21K and Brooklyn College High School Academy. After retiring from the NYC Dept. of Education, she continued her work in the community. She was the Co-Chair of the Million Man/Woman March Coordinating Council of Queens, Inc. from 1995-2008. She was Vice President and Board member for the Varied Internship Program for more than 20 years. In that capacity she helped more than 1000 youth from southeast Queens obtain meaningful after school paid internships. Sister Nzingha was a key organizers of the Annual Black College Tour, For five years she annually travelled with hundreds of Middle and High School students to more than eleven historically Black Colleges. She also had a leadership role in organizing Youth Days, Fathers and their Families Marches and community political, education and economic forums for the residents of Southeast Queens. At the time of her death, she was also doing volunteer teaching in the after school program at P.S.156.

Helen Marshall (1929-2017) was the first African American Queens Borough President, serving from 2002 to 2013.

Marshall was born in Manhattan to immigrant parents of African descent from Guyana. The family moved to Queens in 1949, settling first in Corona and then in East Elmhurst. Marshall graduated with a B.A. in education from Queens College. After teaching for eight years, she left to help found the Langston Hughes Library in 1969, where she was the first Director. She served in the State Assembly for 8 years and then served on the City Council for 10 years, before becoming the first African American and the second woman to serve as the Queens Borough President. She supported job training programs and economic development and was a devoted supporter of the Queens Public Library.

The corner at Northern Boulevard and 103rd Street that is co-named for Marshall is next to the original location of the Langston Hughes Library at 102-09 Northern Boulevard.

Amanda Leah Clarke (1939 – 2017) was a community activist who lived in Queens. She had a deep passion for civic, community and political engagement and was actively engaged in several community groups such as the Federated Blocks of Laurelton, where she served as a block watcher during the crime spikes of the 1970’s and 80’s, and the Laurelton Garden Club. After the murder of her son Michael in 2002, she teamed up with friends and community members to form the Michael Arthur Clarke Foundation which provides scholarships to deserving students in southeast Queens.

In addition to her community activism, she was elected to be the Democratic Party District Leader and in 2001, and ran for the New York City Council in the 31st District of Queens. Although she did not win, she remained actively involved in numerous campaigns as a volunteer, donor, and fundraiser.

This corner also has been named for her son Michael A. Clarke.

Archie Spigner (1928 - 2020) was a local politician who served for 27 years as a City Councilman for District 27 in southeast Queens, from 1974 to 2001, serving his last 15 years as deputy to the majority leader. He also served as the head of the United Democratic Club of Queens from 1970 until his death in 2020, a role in which he helped shape the borough’s Democratic Party leadership. During his tenure, he advocated for education, infrastructure, and the underserved community.

Archie Hugo Spigner was born on Aug. 27, 1928, in Orangeburg, S.C., his family moved to New York when Archie was 7, and he grew up in Harlem. As a young bus driver engaged in union activism, Mr. Spigner drew the attention of the labor leader A. Philip Randolph, who charged him with forming a Queens branch of Mr. Randolph’s Negro American Labor Council. While looking for a meeting place for his group, Mr. Spigner met Mr. Kenneth N. Browne, who was running for the State Assembly, and who became the borough’s first Black member of the New York State Assembly and its first Black State Supreme Court justice. Mr. Browne took Mr. Spigner to the local Democratic club and introduced him to the district leader Guy R. Brewer, and Spigner’s career in Queens politics began. Mr. Spigner went on to attend college, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Queens College in 1972.

Spigner went on to become a major power house in an area that reliably voted Democratic, a nod from Mr. Spigner all but assured election. He was known as “The Dean,” and considered “The Godfather of Politics” in southeastern Queens.  As a local-minded city councilman, Mr. Spigner helped shepherd the sale of the oft-criticized Jamaica Water Supply Company, New York City’s last privately owned waterworks, to the city government in 1997, bringing down costs for residents of southeast Queens. To spur local business, he successfully pushed for the construction of a permanent building for York College, part of the City University of New York, in the Jamaica section; a subway extension to downtown Jamaica; and a regional headquarters of the Social Security Administration.

Darryl E. Greene (1943 – 2016), was a community leader for diversity and inclusion, a lifelong activist for minorities in the construction industry, and a towering figure in the history of New York City. He was an author for Article 15-A of the Executive Law, which created an Office of Minority and Women's Business Development. He served as President of the Darman Group, Executive Director for the Council for Airport Opportunities, Diversity and Inclusion consultant for Forest City Ratner, and a key figure at the Empire State Development Corporation. He impacted countless lives, and his legacy continues to live on in the accomplishments of the people he mentored, many of whom have reached great heights as the next generation of our city’s leadership.

Wilson Rantus (1807-1861) was a free African American businessman, farmer and civil rights activist who owned land in both Flushing and Jamaica in the mid-1800s. He built a school for Black children and took part in the struggle for equal voting rights in New York State, seeking to end property requirements for African American citizens. He also was a financial backer of Thomas Hamilton’s "Anglo-African" magazine and newspaper. The Rantus family farm and cemetery were located adjacent to the site on the Queens College campus where this commemorative boulder is found.

Dr. Lloyd T. Delany (ca. 1923-1969) was associate professor of educational psychology at Queens College. In February 1969, he was named interim director of the college's SEEK (Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge) Program after its previous director, Joseph Mulholland, resigned. Students in the program, who were almost exclusively Black and Puerto Rican, protested the fact that its teaching and administrative staff were almost entirely white, and demanded greater autonomy over the curriculum and operations of the program. They engaged in large, on-campus demonstrations that closed the college for two days. In June 1969 Delany was named SEEK's director of counseling, but he tragically died of a heart attack only several months into that position. Delany was also active in civil rights causes outside of Queens College, having been a leading figure in the fight to integrate the Malverne public schools on Long Island.

Delany Hall was built in 1925 and was known as the "D" Building until it was renamed in Delany's honor in 1993, following extensive renovations. It is currently the home of the college's SEEK and Africana Studies Programs.

John Watusi Branch (1943 – 2013) was the co-founder of the Afrikan Poetry Theater in Jamaica, Queens.

Branch, known as “Baba,” meaning “father,” co-founded the Afrikan Poetry Theater Ensemble, the progenitor to the theater, with Yusef Waliyayain in 1976, bringing together poets and musicians performing jazz, funk, and African rhythms. The Afrikan Poetry Theater was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1977 and expanded to offer cultural and educational tours to West Africa and developed a summer youth employment program. He was a well-known figure in the pan-African movement to establish independence for African nations and unify black people across the world. He was a published poet and author of several titles, including “A Story of Kwanza: Black/Afrikan Holy Days” and “Journey to the Motherland.”

This street is named in honor of the great civil rights activist Malcolm X (1925-1965), who lived on this block of 97th Street between 23rd and 24th Avenues with his wife, Betty Shabaaz, and their four daughters. The family moved into this small home in 1960 and lived here for five years before Malcolm was assassinated in 1965. One week before his assassination in Harlem, the home was firebombed. The house at that time was owned by the Nation of Islam; at present, it is privately owned.

Melvin Harris Jr. was a union representative, community leader and a former aide to Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano. As a young man, he started a youth group for the purpose of steering his peers away from the drug gangs in southeast Queens. He continued this work in his adult years working with such community leaders as the late Dr. Charles Mixon, pastor of the Maranatha Baptist Church of Queens Village, and other clergy to oppose the widespread drug violence and crack dealing on the streets of his community. To accomplish this, he helped unite the civics and clergy in the group “Concerned Citizens Against Drugs” in collaboration with Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward.

Harris was also very active in the Jamaica Branch of the NAACP in its fight for better schools, safer streets and concerned candidates for elected office. He organized a group of ardent social justice supporters, “People United Against Brutality,” which opposed the systematic stopping and searching by the police of innocent schoolchildren and pedestrians. In 1987, Harris joined Local 1056 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represented the public bus drivers in Queens. He became the Local’s political director and the union representative for the Queens Depot. As such, he not only attended and participated in civic-sponsored meetings on improving public transportation in southeast Queens but had a significant role in the preparation of a union contract that had national implications because of its trail-blazing benefits.

Harris later moved to Uniondale in Nassau County, where he served as a public liaison for the County Executive and was appointed Commissioner of the Nassau County Human Rights Commission. He was also the president of the Hempstead chapter of the NAACP from 2012 to 2014. In 2019, Harris was honored with the designation of a portion of Front Street in Uniondale as Melvin Harris Jr. Way.

Reverend George Warren Hinton (1880-1969) was a dedicated pastor and active in the community. Born in North Carolina, Hinton moved to Queens as a young man. There he served for 41 years as the reverend of the Corona Congregational Church. Much of his spare time was devoted to community service, particularly in the cause of health and social services.

Hinton was a member of the Queens Council for Social Welfare, where he served as both vice president and director during his 25 years there. He was an 18-year elected member of the Queens Tuberculosis and Health Association Council, and a first vice president, secretary and co-chairman of the Tuberculosis Christmas Seal Campaign. In addition, he was a member of the Queens Fair Employment Practices Against Discrimination, a moderator for the Home Missionary Committee of the New York Association of Congregational Churches, and a member of the lay board of Elmhurst City Hospital, where he had also served a term as chaplain. Among the many honors he received in recognition of his community service were awards from Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, and several awards from the State of New York.

The City acquired the Hinton Park land in 1961. It was originally intended for a Limited Division Housing Project that failed to receive approval. The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority funded the construction of the park, which was a replacement for the nearby Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Playground, eliminated for the widening of the Grand Central Parkway during the 1964 World’s Fair. The park was named to honor Reverend Hinton in 1976.

The main section of Hinton Park lies across the street from P.S. 134, the Louis Armstrong School. In 1997, Council Member Helen M. Marshall funded a $628,159 reconstruction of the sitting areas at Hinton Park, and 1999, the City added a nearby 0.06-acre triangle to the park.

Roy Ottoway Wilkins (1901-1981) was an American civil rights leader from the 1930s to the 1970s. After graduating from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, he worked for the weekly newspaper, the Kansas City Call. His reporting on the treatment of blacks in Army flood control projects helped to bring about change. In 1931 he began working with the NAACP, eventually serving as as Executive Director from 1955-1977. In 1963 her helped organize the March on Washington. In 1967 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon Johnson.

Jefferson Diggs (d. 2010) was a Civil Rights activist who lived in Jamaica, Queens with his wife Sonia Geder for more than 40 years.

Born in West Virginia, Diggs moved to Ohio, where he attended high school and wrote for a local Black newspaper, the Ohio State Sentinel. He enrolled at Winston Salem State Teachers College, where he was moved by the injustices of racism and segregation, joined the Civil Rights movement and participated in the first wave of sit-ins at Woolworth and Kress lunch counters.

After graduating, Diggs was hired as one of the first African-American reporters by The New York Daily News. In 1983, he started working for former Councilmember Archie Spigner as a part-time legislative aide and subsequently for his successor, current Councilmember Leroy Comrie.

Diggs was active in his community and was a founding member of the Elmer Blackburne Regular Democratic Club and a member of the Guy Brewer Democratic Club, Jamaica NAACP, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., the Black Heritage Board and Community Board 12. He was also an active member of Immaculate Conception R.C. Church.

Lynda McDougald (d. 2018) moved to Curtis Street in East Elmhurst in 1965. In her youth, she attended PS 127, Flushing High School, and worshipped at the Corona Congregational Church. In the 1960s, she was a Civil Rights pioneer. She marched on Washington with Dr. King, and participated in a sit-in at the Department of Education. She founded the networking/investment group Wealth of Knowledge that is now known as Endeavors Unlimited. In 1991, she joined the staff of the Abyssinian Baptist Church and served as its membership and ministry manager.

In 1978, she was a founding member of the Curtis Street Block Association and served as the president many times. She was also the president of the East Elmhurst-Corona Civic Association. She was a member of the Antioch Baptist Church of Corona, Community Board 3, the Jerome Hardeman Sr. Child Care center, the Frederick Douglass Democratic Association, the NAACP, and the 115th Precinct Council.

Sarah Margaret Washington Whiting (1916 – 2017), was a long-term resident of Flushing, Queens, and a community leader. She founded the Holly Civic Association and was an active member of the Flushing Chapter of the NAACP, and the Flushing Democratic Club. She founded an after-school program at PS 24 – then called the PS24Q Mother’s Club. She volunteered her time with the Concerned African Americans of Flushing, Flushing Hospital, Community Board 7, and the 109th Precinct Community Council. Whiting served on Community Board 7 for 20 years before she stepped down in 2007 due to her health. A deeply religious person, Sarah Whiting was also affiliated with Macedonia AME, Ebenezer Baptist Church, and First Baptist Church of Flushing. She was honored by former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman and former Council Member Julia Harrison with an Unsung Heroine Award.

Jack Thompson (d. 2006) known as the “Mayor of Cambria Heights,” was a community activist and the President of the Cambria Heights Civic Association for 11 years.

Thompson was a veteran of the United States Army, and retired from the New York City Department of Education. He was an active member of many advisory boards on community concerns, including - the Jamaica Post Office, Verizon, Jamaica Hospital, Universal Pre-K, and the Human Resources Administration; in addition, he was an honorary member of the Cambria Heights Kiwanis Club, he was one of the founders of the South East Queens Community Partnership, established to fight the scourge of drugs, and played an instrumental role in bringing the first library to the community. Thompson was an inspiration to many in his community and other civic leaders and activists in Cambria Heights.