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Hazel Dukes, longtime NYC, national civil rights leader dead at 92
By
Michelle Bocanegra
Published Mar 1, 2025
Modified Mar 1, 2025
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David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
By
Michelle Bocanegra
Published Mar 1, 2025
Modified Mar 1, 2025
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Hazel Dukes, a national civil rights leader and fixture of New York City politics has died, according to multiple people close to her. She was 92.
She died in her home in Harlem around 6:20 a.m. on Saturday, according to former Gov. David Paterson, a close associate and friend who'd known Dukes since his childhood.
Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference, was a towering figure in New York politics whose advice and support was sought after by presidents, governors and mayors over multiple political eras up to present day. Generations of reporters have sought her opinions and comment on civic issues, and she's been on the front lines of activism and politics longer than many current leaders have been alive.
“She was really a tremendous force,” said Paterson. “Behind the glamour of her advocacy and forcing her way in as a woman — and at times, forcing her way in as an older woman … was not just that people listen to what she had to say, but they understood why she was saying it.”
Dukes, who lived in Harlem, was the subject of a lengthy profile in New York Amsterdam News last year and said she wanted to be remembered as an educator.
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Dukes told the newspaper she grew up in the same neighborhood as civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.
Her father worked as a Pullman porter and was involved in the all-Black railroad union at the time. In the mid-1950s the Dukes family moved to Nassau County, Long Island where Hazel enrolled in community college.
In the 1960s she was appointed to then-President Lyndon Johnson's Head Start program, where she worked to educate young children from low-income families — a focus she would keep throughout career.
Dukes became a national civil rights advocate, focusing on education and anti-poverty initiatives in New York and elsewhere.
In the days of Harlem’s “Gang of Four” — Percy Sutton, David Dinkins, Charles Rangel and Basil Paterson, who led a bastion of Black political power in the city for years — Dukes was the only woman with a figurative seat at the table.
“When these groups would get together they were all male,” Paterson, Basil’s son, said Saturday. “But it was understood that Hazel would be there.”
In 1977 she was elected to lead the NAACP's New York conference, a position she held until her death Saturday morning. In 1989 she was elected to lead the national organization.
Rev. Al Sharpton echoed several others Saturday in describing Dukes as a "force of nature" who commanded respect across the political spectrum.
Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who counted Dukes as one of his highest-profile supporters amid his ongoing legal and political struggles, ordered all flags in New York City at half staff.
“Your work continues through all of us who were blessed to know you,” Adams said in a statement. Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman also ordered flags at half staff “as a memorial to a great leader.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James — the first Black person to hold the office — commended Dukes' life and work in a statement.
"My heart is heavy this morning to learn that another giant has gone on to rest," James said. "Hazel Dukes was a legend who fought for justice every day, and her legacy will live on."
David Giambusso contributed reporting.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Tagged
new york city
Politics
civil rights
Michelle Bocanegra
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