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Thank you so much for being a part of Tuesday’s historic victory. Today, we want to share a bit more about Hakeem’s background as the son of a social worker and a substance abuse counselor and why he’s running to be Speaker of the House.
Please take a look at these excerpts from MS NOW, and click here to see the full video and article >>
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GROWING UP IN BROOKLYN
(via MS NOW)
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Jeffries, who was born in 1970, came of age in New York as hip hop was exploding. Hakeem loves local Brooklyn artists, including Biggie Smalls.
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Hakeem as a kid growing up in Brooklyn
[His brother Hasan] recalled them having a “little breakdance crew” and said his older brother had “notebooks with rap lyrics that he is penning.”
Jeffries also found escape in sports, especially his beloved Yankees and Knicks. The brothers played little league baseball. They transformed their backyard into what Hasan described as a “multi-sports complex,” with their dad using leftover construction scraps to build a basketball hoop.
The backyard was one outlet. Religion was another. The nearby Cornerstone Baptist Church was a pillar of family life in the Jeffries household.
Cornerstone’s senior pastor Lawrence Aker III told MS NOW that the church was where Jeffries “learned how to give speeches.”
“This is where he learned how to lead,” Aker said. “He led other youth ministries right here in this community.”
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A PASSION FOR SERVING OTHERS
(via MS NOW)
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His parents, a social worker and a substance abuse counselor, had one main expectation for their two sons: they had to get an advanced degree and then use what they learned to serve other people.
Jeffries took the law school route, graduating from NYU in 1997.
His younger brother, now a professor of history at The Ohio State University, told MS NOW the two shared a bedroom through high school. And they often debated each other well into the night.
“He enjoys a good intellectual joust, right?” Hasan said of his brother. “As we’re growing up, it’s sports. But once we got to sort of high school, it begins to shift, and we’re thinking more about the world. We’re talking about Malcolm X, we’re talking about Dr. King.”
Hasan says politics began to infuse the conversation.
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RUNNING FOR SPEAKER
(via MS NOW)
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After Democrats made historic gains in the House and Senate last week, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries made it official.
The New Yorker formally announced he was running for speaker…
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For Jeffries, the speakership would be the fulfillment of a dream years in the making. He would become the first Black person to hold the job, capping a political ascent that has carried him from Brooklyn to the top of the Democratic Caucus.
But the prospect of presiding over the House majority will require Jeffries to perform a delicate balancing act.
The 56-year-old will have to hold President Donald Trump accountable, as Democratic voters are demanding, while avoiding the kind of overreach that could alienate swing voters. He will also have to find ways to work with Trump and deliver legislative results on issues such as the high cost of living, even as he draws sharp contrasts with the president and Republicans ahead of the 2028 elections.
Even his position is a paradox. He would be leading the largest Democratic House majority in more than 30 years, but Democrats will largely be acting as an opposition party to Trump for the next two years.
It’s a balance that Jeffries has demonstrated an ability to strike in the past. He served as an impeachment manager during Trump’s Senate trial in 2020, but he has also worked across the aisle, including with the first Trump White House, to help secure legislative achievements like a major criminal justice reform bill in 2018.
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THE PROSPECT OF MAKING HISTORY
(via MS NOW)
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In this moment of uncertainty, one thing is certain, though.
If elected Speaker, Jeffries will be breaking a historic barrier, becoming the first Black person to hold the gavel in the nation’s history.
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Hakeem with his parents and younger brother Hasan
Hasan calls it nearly “inconceivable.”
“You got a kid from Brooklyn, the child of social workers, who slept in the bunk bed above me, who is now Speaker of the House?” he said. “That’s progress.”
In a recent interview with MS NOW, Jeffries, who says he counts the late civil rights icon John Lewis among his greatest personal influences, did pull back on the curtain on his thinking some.
“Whatever the future holds, for me as an individual, it’s part of the reality in this country that we truly are a representative democracy, a flawed one, one that’s not always perfect,” he told MS NOW.
“But it’s an honor for me to be part of our continued march toward a more perfect union,” he said.
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Thank you for reading, and for making Tuesday’s victory possible.
Hakeem Jeffries HQ
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