NYC Black Lives Matter leader Hawk Newsome on race, activism and gentrification
By Dana Kennedy
New York Post
June 27, 2020
Nobody does intimidating like Hawk Newsome.
The most influential Black Lives Matter leader in New York, Newsome stands 6-foot-6 and has no problem getting inches from your face, staring down from behind dark shades and blowing smoke from a cigar.
On a recent late afternoon in the South Bronx, the 43-year-old activist agreed to meet a Post reporter just after giving a heated interview to Fox News that went viral. In it he said that if BLM protesters didn’t get what they wanted, “They will burn down the system.”
“We don’t want white people here,” Newsome told The Post, still fired up as he walked near Yankee Stadium, gesturing at the majestic pre-war apartments on the Grand Concourse and a brilliant sunset.
“We don’t want white people coming in and raising our rents. You can’t be a supporter of black people if you come gentrify their neighborhoods. Stay the fuck out of our communities.”
Newsome, whose real first name is Walter, is not as tough as he’d like people to think.
He’s well-known and well-liked in the neighborhood, where he grew up and still lives — in his childhood apartment, which he shares with his younger sister, Chivona, 35, and their mother, Doris. Newsome’s father, Walter Sr., died five years ago.
As he walks, he fist bumps old friends, hugs others with an almost teddy-bear embrace, joking and showing a softer side. They all call him Walt.
“My dad was the same way,” Newsome said. “He’d be out playing dominoes and knew everybody. He was like the mayor. He even knew what every kid was reading at school and when they started a new book.”
He talked candidly to The Post as he ducked into a Caribbean restaurant for a health shake. He revealed that his mother Doris was a Black Panther member who met his dad at a civil rights rally in 1969, but she rarely talked about her activism.
His vision for the Bronx is similarly militant — a black and brown sovereign nation with its own self-policing force.
“Black and brown guys that join the [NYPD]?” he said. “You can’t trust ‘em. They go blue as soon as they become cops and the blue line is ruled by white men. We don’t want them here telling our people what to do.”
He doesn’t apologize for opinions that President Trump called in a tweet “Treason, Sedition, Insurrection” after hearing him on Fox News Wednesday.
Newsome embraces the movement’s destructive side, saying it was hypocritical for his opponents to call him out for endorsing violence when the U.S. uses “blood and bullets” to get what it wants domestically and overseas.
“I was standing in front of Wells Fargo when it was burning in Minneapolis,” he said. “It was very liberating. F–k that. Burn man. They only listen when we destroy things. America doesn’t care about people; they care about property.”
Newsome isn’t affiliated with BLM Global Network, considered the official organization behind the Black Lives Matters movement. On Thursday, its managing director told the AP that he wasn’t part of the network, which has 16 chapters, including one in New York that does not appear to be operating.
What’s clear is that no one in the movement in this city has more influence than Newsome.
But his journey to activist leader was rocky.
He says he nearly succumbed to temptations of the hood as a teenager. He dropped out of high school before getting his GED, and has spoken publicly about his battle with alcoholism, anger issues and being guilty of domestic violence.
He said he’s been sober for four and half years.
Newsome eventually made it through Concordia College in Bronxville, then got a degree from Touro Law School on Long Island. He found work as a paralegal for the Bronx County DA’s office and later as a project manager for the Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker law firm in Manhattan.
He changed his name to “Hawk” in 2016, he said, because he’s had a lifelong fascination with the raptors. He said ancient Egyptians believed the birds of prey were protectors from above.
Newsome’s among a number of young black activists in New York and around the country who came of age watching the cases of Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin play out and have found their voices in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd.
He’s close to his sister, who lost her bid for the 15th Congressional District seat in the recent primary.
The contrast between Hawk the national firebrand and Hawk the kid from the Bronx is most apparent when he speaks to his sister about their parents, calling them “Mommy and Daddy.”
Chivona Newsome co-founded BLM NY with her brother, and the two have run a political consulting business for 10 years aimed at supporting the black and brown community in the Bronx. He has two children with a former partner.
Both Newsomes say they are not fans of either the Republicans or the Democrats and hope that Black Lives Matter’s passionate base will translate into the kind of political capital that will challenge both parties.
“Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi wearing West African kente cloths and taking the knee? It’s insulting,” Hawk Newsome said.
“And now the Republicans care about police reform? But what’s going to change? None of them are going to change but we are. We building our own community and we are going to grow strong. Just watch.”
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