\u201cHe was called the mayor of Queens Village,\u201d declared Shaun D. Francois I, boss of the public service sector union DC 37\u2019s largest local. Earlier this month, Francois succeeded in getting a street in the area co-named after his late brother, Frank \u201cSha\u201d Francois.<\/p>\n
Sha Francois had spent some years at Rikers before later becoming a popular figure in the community, an activist with the New Black Panther Party, owner of a T-shirt print shop and a Green Party candidate for local and federal office. He was installed, before his death at 58 of natural causes in 2023, as a manager at Project Hope-The New Direction, a Queens Village nonprofit that operates youth programs.<\/p>\n
Francois was born in Washington, DC, and named after his Trinidadian father \u2014 who moved his family to the area in the 1970s \u2014 but he would be remembered, ultimately, as a Queens Village man.<\/p>\n
A crowd showed up in force in Queens Village on Oct. 3 to watch the street unveiling, where the late Francois\u2019 name would now permanently overlook 220th Street, from 104th to 107th avenues. Flags \u2014 American, Trinidadian and both \u2014 flew, and electeds showed up too, such as state Sen. Leroy Comrie and City Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of new people came in the area over the years,\u201d said Francois\u2019 brother. They would have a lot to learn. \u201cBecause to have a street name, he must be important. You don\u2019t just get a street name if you\u2019re nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Andrew Karpan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe was called the mayor of Queens Village,\u201d declared Shaun D. Francois I, boss of the public service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[8073,80721,9,24,63,137755,19221,122,124,123,28791,137754,137753],"class_list":["post-374284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-jumaane-williams","tag-leroy-comrie","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-project-hope-the-new-direction","tag-queens-village","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-selvena-brooks-powers","tag-sha-francois","tag-shaun-francois"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374284","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=374284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}