Black Democrats Rally Behind New York Senator

Some of New York’s top black Democrats were among the dozens who rallied on the streets of Harlem on Monday to show their support for Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the state Senate minority leader, and criticize a hedge fund manager who had attacked her using racially inflammatory language.

The hedge fund manager, Daniel S. Loeb, one of the state’s most prolific political donors, said in a Facebook posting last week that Ms. Stewart-Cousins was worse for minorities than “anyone who has ever donned a hood” because of her support for teachers’ unions. Mr. Loeb has since deleted the post and apologized.

But the images from Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend — of white supremacists clashing with protesters in an American city — threw into sharper relief Mr. Loeb’s racially charged analogy.

“That is unacceptable and we will not tolerate it,” said Hazel N. Dukes, the president of the N.A.A.C.P. New York State Conference. “And we don’t accept the apology. It’s too late.”

The rally took on added significance after the weekend of violence in Virginia, something that Ms. Stewart-Cousins addressed in her first interview since Mr. Loeb’s initial posting. “With the comment by Mr. Loeb, and then us having an opportunity to look at what the K.K.K. means in contemporary America, is really, really chilling,” she said. “If anybody had forgotten, or if you think that reference is something to take lightly, I think we’re reminded that it is not.”

Ms. Stewart-Cousins stopped short of calling for Mr. Loeb to step down from his position as board chairman of Success Academy, saying only that “one has to be concerned this person is in a position of leadership in an academy or a set of schools that purport to enhance the educational experience of black and brown children.”

But a chorus of Democrats, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, has called on Mr. Loeb to step down from Success Academy, a major network of charter schools that serves more than 90 percent minority children. One activist at the rally, Kirsten John Foye of the National Action Network, pledged to organize protests at Success Academy campuses when the school year begins.

And the chairman of a board of trustees committee at the State University of New York, which reviews charter school applications for approval, said he had asked their counsel to review any options they have to deal with Mr. Loeb.

“The students in our charter schools are overwhelmingly kids of color, and I think they deserve to have teachers and administrators and boards that inspire them,” Joseph Belluck, the chairman of the Charter Schools Committee, said in an interview, calling Mr. Loeb’s remark “reprehensible.”

On Monday, another apparent Facebook posting emerged, obtained by The New York Times and first published by dealbreaker.com, in which Mr. Loeb again likened teachers unions to the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Loeb urged that people “take up the fight against the teachers union, the single biggest force standing in the way of quality education and an organization that has done more to perpetuate poverty and discrimination against people of color than the K.K.K.”

Mr. Loeb’s spokeswoman did not return multiple emails and calls for comment.

There has not just been pressure on Mr. Loeb, but also on the politicians whom he has showered with campaign cash in recent years. He has spent millions to back Republicans who control the state Senate, despite a slight numerical Democratic majority. Mr. Loeb has also donated $50,000 to a group of breakaway Democrats, known as the Independent Democratic Conference, who have formed a coalition with the Republicans.

Mr. Loeb has also given generously to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo: more than $170,000, including money from Mr. Loeb’s wife. Mr. Cuomo did not attend Monday’s rally; one of his senior advisers, Alphonso David, came on his behalf.

Representatives Hakeem Jeffries, Yvette Clarke and Adriano Espaillat, former Representative Charlie Rangel, Senator Mike Gianaris, a top deputy to Ms. Stewart-Cousins, and Letitia James, the city’s public advocate, were among those who spoke at the event on Monday.

The issues of Mr. Loeb and the I.D.C., which has existed since 2011, were blurred at the rally, as alternating speakers denounced both.

Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, announced at the rally to loud cheers that he was returning a donation he received years ago from Mr. Loeb and giving the funds to a Democratic challenger to an I.D.C. member.

“You have to have zero tolerance for hate speak,” said Mr. Stringer, who had received $9,000 in 2011, state records show. “At some point, you have to put your money where your mouth is.”

Asked about what Mr. Cuomo — whom state activists and at least one national Democratic group have called upon to return Mr. Loeb’s money — should do, Mr. Stringer demurred. “Everyone has to make their own decision,” he said. As for Mr. Loeb’s post with Success Academy, Mr. Stringer said, “My sense is he will step down.”

Also hanging over the Harlem event was a closed-door meeting last month in which Ms. Stewart-Cousins interrupted Mr. Cuomo when he suggested that she has a worse understanding of the suburbs that the white leader of the breakaway Democrats. “You look at me, Mr. Governor, but you don’t see me. You see my black skin and a woman,” Ms. Stewart-Cousins had said.

Ms. Dukes, the N.A.A.C.P. president, offered a not-so-veiled warning to Mr. Cuomo, whom many Democrats blame for the Republican-controlled Senate.

“She runs in Westchester County,” Ms. Dukes said of Ms. Stewart-Cousins. “She deals with people other than people that look like us. But I want to tell you something for those who get in a back room and see nothing but her skin: You better see more than that today. You better look at all of us who stand here today and know that you are coming back to our community to ask for votes. We can vote or we can sit down.”