If he were here today, William Henry Booth would be marching to protest the November 2006 police shooting of Sean Bell outside a Jamaica nightclub while at the same time trying to bring understanding and healing to the community that was left grieving in its wake, according to his daughter, Gini Booth.
“He was a gentleman warrior,” she said.
The Queens community will celebrate the life of Booth, a judge, civil rights activist and humanitarian who fought passionately for racial equality throughout his life, at a memorial service in his honor on Saturday, January 6 at the Greater Allen AME Cathedral in Jamaica.
“Judge Booth, a native of Queens, rose to fight for the rights all individuals. He exemplified the best of the human spirit,” said Queens Borough President Helen Marshall.
Booth died in his home in Kissimmee, FL on December 12, 2006 from complications related to a stroke he had in 2005, said his daughter. He was 84.
A fervent believer in the ability of the law to right mankind's wrongs, Booth knew from the age of 7 that he wanted to be a lawyer.
“His belief in law and justice was a connecting factor in everything he did,” Gini Booth said.
Born in Jamaica on August 13, 1922, Booth began his activist career at the age of 12 when he became president of the Jamaica Branch Youth Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Later, he rose through the organization's ranks to become New York State president and eventually a member of the organization's national board of directors.
He graduated with honors from Jamaica High School and Queens College and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in law from New York University. In 1950 he became a member of the New York Bar Association and practiced criminal law for 16 years. In October 1956, Booth earned the right to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to his daughter, Booth was perhaps most well known in the Jamaica community for his participation in a 1963 protest at the Rochedale Village housing complex. Booth, along with 23 others, blocked trucks from entering the construction site to demand that black workers be hired there and was arrested for disorderly conduct.
In 1966, Booth entered public service when Mayor John Lindsay appointed him to lead the New York City Commission on Human Rights. In 1969 Lindsey appointed Booth to be a Criminal Court judge. In 1976, Booth became an Acting Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn.
After retiring as a judge, Booth joined a Brooklyn law firm and in 1989 returned to private practice. In 1991, Mayor David Dinkins appointed him chairperson of the New York City Board of Correction (BOC).
Gini Booth said she was walking down a hallway at Riker's Island while working on a literacy project there during her father's tenure with the BOC when she heard a female prisoner call out “Thank your father! Thank your father!”
She wasn't sure what to expect until, “She told me to tell him thanks for sentencing her because it saved her life.”
In 1971, Judge Booth served as an official observer for the U.S.A. Episcopal Church during the trial of Gonville A. Ffrench-Beytagh, dean of the Anglican cathedral in Johannesburg, who was imprisoned for five years for his opposition to apartheid.
In May 1994, Booth attended the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the first black, democratically-elected president of South Africa.
“From Jamaica to Johannesburg-pretty exceptional,” Gini Booth said of her father's life.
The memorial service for William Henry Booth will begin at 1 p.m. on Saturday, January 6 at the Greater Allen A.M.E Cathedral. The Cathedral is located at 110-31 Merrick Boulevard, Jamaica.
Memorial service for William Henry Booth
By Karen James
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