By Jean Nash Wells and Robin S. Nash


Meeting with Mayor Cory Booker is no easy feat. He’s a mayor on the move always on the go. If you want to catch him, you have to run with him. Minutes before our scheduled interview, his office informed us of a change of venue. The Mayor was at the scene of a nursing home fire. Tenants had been temporarily sheltered in a nearby school and rallying his staff and city officials to tend to their needs and finding substitute housing was his uppermost concern. Fortunately, the Mayor’s parents were visiting from Atlanta (they were here for Mother’s Day and to await the birth of the first grandchild from their elder son, Carey, Jr.). So while Cory was working to ameliorate the situation at hand, we had a chance to sit with his parents and get some insight into the dynamic, intense young man who at 37-years-old intends to enhance the City of Newark and change the lives of its residents in dramatic ways. The Mayor will mark one-year office in July.

Carolyn Booker (CB): We were very surprised at Cory’s decision to go into politics. And we didn’t pick careers for our kids. We encouraged them to follow their passion. Cary, Cory’s brother, is older by two years and is the associate dean of academic affairs at Rutgers Newark. Cary and Cory are still very close and Cary is still Cory’s caretaker. They look very much alike and people often get them confused. So they have a great relationship, which we are very pleased about. They are very different. They have there own friends and their own interests. But once the door closed at night, it was two brothers together supporting each other all the time.

JNW: Did you have any reservations about him taking this job?

CB: I only had one, and that was safety. When you try to remove entrenched leadership, nobody gives up power easily. So I tell him all the time ‘You keep me on my knees.’

JNW: Cary, in what ways is Cory like you?

Cary Booker Sr. CBS): I think the dogged determination. But, it’s not like he’s working all the time, because he’s doing something he enjoys.

JNW: What was Cory like growing up? Tell us a Cory story.
CB: Cory was the kind of kid who questioned everything and everybody, and still does. He’s always been very goal oriented. . Corey was the kid who would after the first 2 weeks of school, “Here’s what I’m going to achieve in this class and this is what I’ll get in that class. Now mom I may have a problem here and I may need some extra help” but he would lay out everything that he wanted to achieve. And that even had to do with extracurricular activities. He would always sit down and say, “Well I think when I graduate, if leadership is important for scholarships then I need to figure out to be a class leader.” So he would begin to put together to make a plan and I would sometimes call my mother and say, “They’re scaring me.” Astrologically Cory is a Taurus. And one of the things that we learned from that kind of a child is that you always have to leave them a way out. Don’t ever box them in a corner or you see the worst in them. Cory got upset about something we were disciplining him about and decided he was going to run away from home. The first time he did this he went upstairs and meticulously packed two suitcases; one had his clothes and one had his toys. Cary was saying, “Should we stop him?” I leaned over to Cary and I said ‘Anybody that loves creature comforts this much is not going far.’

CBS: The rest of the story is that he left. I figured I needed to check to see where he was. His mother said “He’ll be alright,” but I was getting worried. I go outside to look, but I don’t see him anyplace. I check around the house again and I don’t see him. I’m thinking, ‘Gosh, I lost my son.’ I heard somebody going “Hee, hee, hee, hee.” It turns out he was sitting across the street watching me go around the house looking for him. He came back willingly.

JNW: What characteristics of his do you admire?

CB: I would say his honesty and his integrity. He also has a special way of being able to reach out to children, and maybe that’s never losing the child within himself.

CBS: His confidence level, his willingness to reach out to others, his sincerity. Cory has a way of making people feel like they’ve always known him. People seek Cory out because he gives back to them. That’s something I always encouraged him to do.

Mayor Booker pops his head in. Now we’re ready for him!

JNW: I’d like to get an assessment of your first year in office and have you had to alter your thoughts about what it would take.

Mayor Booker (MB): I still have a bold vision of what is possible in Newark and if anything it’s been encouraged by the residents, businesses and churches that have really rallied together in ways that even I didn’t envision. Even today, you should see the outpouring of support from local restaurants, people donating cases of water, offering everything from furniture to people carrying things. Things like that are giving me such a bold sense of what’s possible in the city of Newark. The more I open my heart and administration to help from the city the more we get it. Perhaps one of the best signs of this is just from the last two months. We gave residents a tip line for them to call if anyone is carrying an illegal gun or if they have any ideas about how to solve a crime. The tip lines have rewards on them and people have been calling to a degree that’s even shocked the people who helped organize the police foundation. We’ve caught tens of thousands of dollars worth of drugs or stolen property, there have been a few dozen arrests and many, many guns have been recovered off the streets. We didn’t have this before so our residents are helping solve crimes in their own neighborhoods. It’s over exceeding my expectations of what’s possible.

RSN: What marks do you give yourself for your progress?
MB: I think that we’ve performed well. Take violent crime for example, overall violent crimes and totally categories are down 25-30 percent. No other city in America has seen these kinds of marks. But its hard for me to be excited because when you go from very, very, very bad to just very bad, its still very violent. I’m not thinking that we’ve accomplished anything great yet, but we are setting a national standard in terms of pace and transformation that’s not being seen in other places. But that’s still not my standard. My parents taught me early not to set my standards based upon who’s to the left of me or to the right of me.

JNW: Does the Obama candidacy give you any ideas about your future?
MB: I have never been a person in my life to be consumed with a position; I’ve always been about a purpose. The most important fights, frankly, are at the local level right now. The cities in America have not had access to all of the abundance in America and that’s where the battle is. And the president is a great position, but I can do more for changing urban realities as a big city mayor, more so than any position that I can think of right now. So, when I look up, all I’m seeing is the top of the mountain that I’m trying to get to. I’ve seen this city transform. There is an old saying, “The best way to make God laugh is to make plans for yourself,” and if you read my journal from 1996 my plans for myself had nothing to do with electoral politics. My model was Jeffrey Canada who is a phenomenal guy and I wanted to recreate something like that. The next thing I knew my life had done a 180-degree turn in less than one year and I was running for a city council seat.

RSN: What characteristics of your father’s do you most admire?
MB: I have inherited a lot of his incorrigible traits. (Laughs) There is an old saying that Baldwin [writer James Baldwin] says, “Children are never going to listen to their elders but they never fail to imitate them.” The best things about my father are not the things he’s said to me, but the things I witnessed growing up and that I wanted to emulate. He affirms the dignity of everybody that comes into his orbit and I watched this as a kid. It’s this unconditional love that my father has for humanity and for people. I listened to my Mom’s stories about him. She said when they started dating she would visit him and he would have the whole world in his apartment because his door was always open. And it’s that kind of civility and that kind of agape love that I’ve always found great. He never talked down to anyone. He affirmed their humanities, sees their dignity and talks to them as equals. It’s one of the skills I see within myself that I most appreciate. I laugh about both of my parents, because I still see them parenting with their words. I feel very comfortable because the best parenting they did was with their actions.

My biggest blessing in life, bar none, has been my parents and my brother, who is like a third parent to me in many ways. All that I am is because of the family that I have around me and I know the values of that and how important that is. My parents’ lessons showed me that life is about making the best out of yourself; there are no excuses. Whatever you do, try to do it excellently but always with the idea that you’re going to give back and make a contribution and be a person of service.