Journalism Professor to Tell Epic Story of Brooklyn’s "City Son"

Assistant Professor Wayne Dawkins completed "City Son: Andrew W. Cooper’s Impact on Modern-Day Brooklyn." The book will be published in July 2012 by University Press of Mississippi.

Dawkins worked six years on this biography of his mentor Cooper [1927-2002] who was the mastermind of a successful voting rights lawsuit that made Shirley Chisholm’s historic election to Congress possible. Cooper later founded Trans Urban News Service, where Dawkins began his journalism career just weeks after graduating from Long Island University.

Later, Cooper published the City Sun, a feisty Brooklyn-based weekly where Dawkins’ JAC colleague Van Dora Williams was an intern.

In 2007, Dawkins, Williams and a handful of JAC students produced "Voting Rights Northern Style," an online "Eyes on the Prize" grant project that served as a partial outline for the forthcoming book.