Alvin Bragg Makes History As Manhattan’s First African-American District Attorney

Alvin Bragg Makes History As Manhattan’s First African-American District Attorney

by 01/05/2022

Alvin Bragg has made history as the first African American to be elected as Manhattan’s district attorney in New York City. Bragg, who is 48-years old and a native of Harlem, is a civil rights lawyer and a former federal prosecutor. During his campaign, he promised to change the culture of the district attorney’s office and to focus more on high-level offenses.

“The fundamental role of the district attorney is to guarantee both fairness and safety,” Bragg told supporters on election night, according to NBC News.

“That is the trust has been given to me on the ballot, but given to all of us — that’s what we’ve worked for — to show the city and the country a model for pairing partnership, pairing fairness and safety into one.”

In his new role, Bragg already has his hands full as he takes over the DA’s investigation into the Trump Organization. He is expected to decide whether to charge Donald Trump with a crime.

A lifetime of hard work, courage and demanding justice.

Alvin with his parents, Sadie and Alvin, Sr. at Harvard Law School Moot Court competition.

A son of Central Harlem and a husband and father raising two children here, Alvin Bragg has spent the better part of two decades in the courtroom, standing up to the powerful and fighting to get justice.

Most recently, Alvin served as the Chief Deputy Attorney General in New York State where he oversaw some of the office’s biggest cases, including suing Harvey Weinstein and his company for the existence of a hostile work environment; challenging the Trump administration over the census for its inclusion of a citizenship question; and bringing significant criminal charges in bribery, securities fraud, and Medicaid fraud matters.

standing up for tenants’ rights, civil rights and human rights

Previously Alvin served as Executive Deputy Attorney General (EDAG) for Social Justice and organized and served as the first Chief of a special unit that investigated police-involved killings. He won significant settlement agreements in matters concerning discriminatory redlining, tenant harassment, wage and hour violations, unlawful discrimination by employers based on applicants’ criminal history records, unlawful business practices by health insurance companies and led an investigation revealing that only three percent of the approximately 2.4 million Stop and Frisk stops by the NYPD between 2009 and 2012 resulted in convictions and only .1 percent of the stops resulted in convictions for a violent crime.

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Prior to the Attorney General’s Office, Alvin served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. He successfully prosecuted corrupt politicians, both Democrat and Republican, and obtained trial verdicts convicting the owner of a multi-million dollar business for laundering millions of dollars for an international drug cartel, a lawyer for mortgage fraud involving millions of dollars of losses to financial institutions, an FBI agent for making false statements, and individuals blocking a reproductive health facility in violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

A father, a teacher and active in his community

Alvin is now a Visiting Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Racial Justice Project at New York Law School where his research and coursework focus on the intersection of criminal law and civil rights, prosecutorial discretion and accountability, and the functions of state Attorneys General.

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Alvin earned his A.B. in Government (cum laude, general studies) from Harvard and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He was on the first-place team in the Ames Moot Court Competition and was an editor for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.

Alvin is a member of the Board of Directors of The Legal Aid Society, a former member of the Board of Directors of the New York Urban League, and a Sunday School teacher at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. He lives in Harlem with his wife Jamila and two children.

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