Honorees for the June 18 program included Judge Sandra E. Roper, who also served as the afternoon\u2019s keynote speaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Roper, a civil rights lawyer and judge serving in the Civil Court of Kings County, is a prominent figure in Brooklyn\u2019s legal community with a career spanning decades in the criminal and civil courts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1988 after graduating from Brooklyn Law School. She began her legal career as a civil rights attorney, focusing on advocacy and justice issues in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe depth of Judge Roper\u2019s legal career spans decades,\u201d Douglas said. \u201cShe has been somebody whom we in the legal community have known for years, fighting for civil rights and so dedicated to her Caribbean roots. I feel that her arc and her story connect with so many, including our committee members.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The other honorees were Winston Lewis, owner of Brooklyn-based Caribbean restaurant Culpepper\u2019s, and The GodSquad, a coalition of clergy from the 67th Precinct Clergy Council who work in Central Brooklyn to prevent violence, mediate neighborhood conflicts and support families.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Douglas described the event as upbeat. Performers Stilts on Fire and Steel Vibes, a steel drum group, sustained the celebratory spirit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also decorated the courthouse with artwork,\u201d Douglas said. \u201cOur objective was to give people a slice of the Caribbean and kind of transport them there.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caribbean Heritage Month was officially recognized in the U.S. in 2006 after a bipartisan effort in Congress. The House of Representatives unanimously adopted the resolution in June 2005, sponsored by Congressmember Barbara Lee, and the Senate passed the resolution in February 2006.\u00a0<\/p>\n
President George W. Bush issued a proclamation on June 5, 2006, declaring June as National Caribbean American Heritage Month, acknowledging the achievements of Caribbean immigrants and their descendants in the U.S. across government, sports, entertainment and the arts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The observance was initially promoted by Dr. Claire Nelson and the Institute of Caribbean Studies, which celebrated the first nationwide Caribbean-American Heritage Month in 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Honorees for the June 18 program included Judge Sandra E. Roper, who also served as the afternoon\u2019s keynote…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,101209,3308,101280,6448,20746,15312,15313,5282,9,24,63,86549],"class_list":["post-278645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-caribbean-community","tag-daily-bulletin","tag-dena-douglas","tag-genine-edwards","tag-kings-county-court","tag-kings-county-supreme-court-brooklyn-supreme-court","tag-legal-community","tag-music-performance","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-wavny-toussaint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}