Commencement 2025: Doctorate recipient Roger Green says recognition ‘one of greatest honors that I’ve had’

By Nick Masuda | nicholas.masuda31@mec.cuny.edu

Roger L. Green, a former distinguished lecturer at Medgar Evers College, Director of the college’s Dubois-Bunche Center on Public Policy, founder of the Center for Law and Social Justice (CLSJ) and longtime New York State Assembly legislator, is receiving the Doctor of Humane Letters.

To say Mr. Green is humbled by this honor would undoubtedly be an understatement.

“It’s one of the greatest honors that I’ve had,” Mr. Green said.

A product of the New York City public school system and graduate of Southern Illinois University, Mr. Green returned home to serve his Brooklyn community for 26 years as a legislator from Assembly District 57.

Using his degree in Cultural Anthropology, International Affairs and Government, Mr. Green served District 57 from 1981 to 2007 in the New York State Assembly.

Mr. Green is no stranger to overcoming long odds, as it took him three primary runoffs to win the District 57 seat the first time in November 1980. Over the next 27 years, he was dedicated to both civil and human rights, advocating for laws and policies that prioritized both.

As part of his work and as a response to high-profile deaths in the community, Mr. Green would help Medgar Evers College establish the CLSJ. The organization is well-known as transformative, as it prioritizes the destruction of racial injustice.

As a distinguished lecturer at Medgar Evers College in 2007, Mr. Green taught a course that dissected the U.S. Constitution’s “freedom amendments” — the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th — and their influence over state and local government.

“I probably learned as much from them as they learned from me,” Mr. Green said. “I’ve always been impressed with the resilience of Medgar students — how they’ve overcome so many odds, and obstacles in pursuit of their education. Having traveled to a number of different college campuses from and have lectured at Harvard and Columbia and Michigan State, Medgar students are unique.

“Medgar has one of the most diverse student body populations that I’ve witnessed.”

Mr. Green served as Chair of the New York State Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus. As the chairman, he led a group that loudly voiced its support of laws designed to prosecute racial violence. That included standing shoulder to shoulder with the Reverends Al Sharpton, Timothy Mitchell and Herbert Daughtry during the “Day of Outrage,” a response to the racial killing of Michael Griffith in Brooklyn.

Shortly after, he worked with Assemblyman Arthur O. Eve to co-author the “Anti-Bias” Bill, the state’s first comprehensive legislation to include prosecution for violence against members of the gay community.

His 26 years in office are nearly unprecedented, but it wasn’t necessarily the plan.

“I didn’t know how long I was going to serve,” Mr. Green said. “And I think what I found was that in almost every term, there was another unique challenge that our community was facing and I was basically motivated to see if I could work with my constituents.”

Mr. Green is married to activist, Coraminita Mahr; is the father of three children, Corlita, Khalid and Imani.