If This House Could Talk: Life on Jefferson Avenue

"Here I am, 76 years old, grandson of the late Bertram L. Baker, the political pioneer who in 1948 became the very first Black person elected to office in the history of Brooklyn. Many tens of thousands of Blacks had lived in Brooklyn through the 1800s and into the first half of the 20th century. But it was this immigrant, born on the then British colony of Nevis in 1898, who made Brooklyn history, as the Black political pioneer."

"My grandparents took me and my polio stricken mother into their brownstone home at 399 Jefferson Avenue in 1952. We had been living in the Fort Greene projects with my father, Wilfred Howell, a Black World War II U.S. Marine veteran and would-be lawyer, who was sinking deep into alcoholism and did not show up at home to take care of me or my mom."

A 76-year-old grandson describes his grandfather, Bertram L. Baker, who in 1948 became the first Black person elected to office in Brooklyn. Baker was born in Nevis in 1898. Baker and his wife Irene sheltered their grandchild and the grandchild’s polio-stricken mother in their brownstone at 399 Jefferson Avenue in 1952. The child’s father, Wilfred Howell, a Black World War II U.S. Marine veteran and aspiring lawyer, struggled with alcoholism and later joined Alcoholics Anonymous before dying in 1993 at age 73. The grandson published a 2018 memoir and recalls Bed-Stuy’s hardships alongside the brownstone’s refuge.

Read at Brownstoner