They were the Gang of Four, ambitious and savvy young pols from Harlem who reshaped the face of New York politics in the ’60s and turned the African-American community into a political powerhouse.
The smartest and savviest of them all — not to mention the most respected — was Basil Paterson, who died Wednesday just short of his 88th birthday.
These days, most New Yorkers remember him as the father of former Gov. David Paterson. But Basil Paterson shattered glass ceilings of his own, paving the way for future generations of black office-holders.
After a stint in the state senate, in 1970 he ran as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, the first black candidate to run statewide on a major-party ticket. He lost that race but later served as deputy mayor for labor relations under Ed Koch and as Gov. Hugh Carey’s secretary of state, again, the first black to hold that office.
The Harlem-born son of Caribbean immigrants, Paterson worked his way through college and law school, and later joined with Charles Rangel, David Dinkins and the late Percy Sutton in forging a political machine that turned them into kingmakers, in their own community and then citywide.
David Paterson won his father’s old Senate seat, eventually succeeding Eliot Spitzer as governor. That created potential conflicts for his father, who had since become a labor lawyer representing many of New York’s most powerful public unions.
Needless to say, we had our differences with the younger Paterson on that score. But as Rep. Rangel recalled yesterday, “No one ever had an unkind word to say about Basil.” He’s right, and few New York politicians ever merited such an epitaph. RIP.