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Transcript of full Maurice Mitchell interview

BY DAVE MARCUS | dave.marcus@newsday.com

Maurice Mitchell, 28, is the lead organizer for the Long Island Progressive Coalition. He trains activists to work on better schools as well as affordable housing and health care. Born to immigrants from Grenada and Trinidad, he graduated from Long Beach High School in 1997 and Howard University in 2001. He lives in Oceanside.

Q: How did you become an activist?

Mitchell: What drew me into activism was my parents' sense of justice, the stories they would tell me about their journey from poverty in the West Indies to the United States. The bedtime stories were about historical stories of the black struggle in South Africa, the United States and the Caribbean. I think the perspective of the first generation is a little different. I identify as a black American, but I also see through the lens of an immigrant. When you look at any indicators for a society's health -- like education and housing -- they're all racialized. We still live in a segregated country, a segregated island. We have so much work ahead of us.

Q: What's a success that you relish?

Mitchell: One of the most significant successes we had was around equity in school funding. It's the simple idea that no matter what community children come from, regardless of how much money their parents make, their racial background, their ethnic background, their immigration status -- if you're in a school you're going to get quality education. It took us seven years. We built a grass-roots movement from around the state, just regular everyday people and regular everyday students, just fighting for that principle, events, meetings ... it built to a crescendo. We were able to pressure the government to change the way we fund schools. That was due to political pressure happening from students and parents in Central Islip, Wyandanch, Brentwood, Hempstead ... coming together, organizing, finding little pressure points they could apply pressure on in state government. The result is billions of dollars in education we're hoping will translate into marked differences in the quality of education for students. You have schools that have an extra period of instruction. We're going to monitor to see what the schools do with this money so that it does have an impact.

Q: Do you have doubts about what you do?

Mitchell: I've had moments of doubt and fearfulness, certainly, because in a real way you're going against the status quo, the apparatus of the state. I think it's good to have doubt because if you don't have doubt you become a fundamentalist. Then you stop asking questions. I always have doubts because sometimes I wonder if the position I'm taking, is that really the right position, deciding to spend my life as an organizer -- is that really what I want to do, do I want to continue to rail against the system? Is that going to be a sustainable way of life? Is that going to be a nurturing environment for my children?

Q: What do you want your legacy to be?

Mitchell: I'd just like to be remembered as somebody who tried in [his] own way and humbly to make a difference, and I carried that out with some level of integrity.