(Headline USA) “Squad” Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., defended honoring a convicted cop killer while previously serving as principal at a Bronx middle school, according to the New York Post.
Bowman worked as the principal of Cornerstone Academy for Social Action before running for Congress. During his tenure, he included on the school’s “Wall of Honor” a picture of Joanna Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, a black militant on the FBI Most Wanted list who killed New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973.
When asked about that decision this week, Bowman stood by it.
“Who are you to tell anyone on how they should engage in their own history and the people in their history?” Bowman said at a Feb. 21 Yonkers Third Precinct Community Council meeting.
“My school included black and Latino students,” he added. “We tried to teach as much of our black and Latino history as possible—the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Bowman went on to claim that white Americans glorify historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves.
Pressed again on whether he regretted praising the convicted killer, Bowman responded: “I will refuse to denounce. I’m answering the question the way I want to answer it. We, our kids in my school learned the history of a people off the walls—and many other people—and so, that’s what we did. Period.”
Chesimard was a part of the extremist Black Liberation Army and was one of three people convicted in the shooting of the New Jersey trooper after he stopped their vehicle for a motor violation.
At the time, Chesimard was also wanted for her role in several other felonies, including a bank robbery.
She was found guilty of first degree murder but escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba.
During the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement—as the group aggressively sought to infiltrate school systems and promote its radical Marxist ideology with curricular lessons that it distributed through teachers unions and other leftist organizations—others also came under fire for glorifying Shakur.
