FBI Hero Sparks Battle Over Black History On Bed-Stuy Block

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — The daughter of the first African American FBI agent to die on duty wants to name the Bed-Stuy block her dad lived on in his honor.

The problem is, the street was also home to an historic cultural institution that was once in the bureau's surveillance crosshairs – and its members don't like the thought of honoring an institution that targeted groups like theirs while organizations like the KKK thrived.

The city council will consider co-naming the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Claver Place for Special Agent Edwin R. Woodriffe after Community Board 3 members voted to support his daughter’s petition last week, according to Chairman Richard Flateau.

The board made its decision after Lee Ann Woodriffe, 54, presented them with 190 signatures from local residents, letters from local and federal law enforcement officials and an impassioned plea to honor the memory of her father, who died in Washington D.C. almost 50 years ago.

“I don’t want my father or his memory to be relegated to a google search result or a statistic," his daughter told Patch. "It just seems each year, the public, they know less and less.”

But former members of The East, a cultural icon that altered the course of Brooklyn’s history, have concerns about honoring a federal agent when the block has no memorial dedicated to their group.

“I left the room wondering how can we allow this?” said Attika J. Torrence, a former member of the group. “Understanding what the FBI did, it’s just a little disheartening … especially on that corner.”

The corner in question is where Woodriffe served as an altar boy at St. Peter Claver Roman Catholic Church and less than a block from where he and his wife lived in her family’s Jefferson Street brownstone, said his daughter.

But Woodriffe, his wife and their two young children moved to Washington D.C. in 1967 when he became one of few African American men granted an FBI badge, his daughter said.

“It was very hard to become an agent anyway,” said Woodriffe. “But add to that he’s a man of color and he didn’t have a law enforcement degree, he had to stand out to get in.”

Woodriffe’s memories of her father are hazy, but she remembers him as a man who took his work seriously and his family by storm.

“He was a jokester, a prankster, always playful, very quick-witted,” she recalled. “But when he put his suit on and went to work, he was focused on doing that well.”

Woodriffe lost her father on Jan. 8, 1969, when she was five and he was just 27 years old , according to FBI records. Woodriffe and his partner were on assignment, tracking down an escaped prisoner and bank robber, when both men were shot dead by the convict in a D.C. apartment building.

The family returned to Brooklyn so that Woodriffe's funeral could take place at St. Peter Claver Church and he could be buried in the borough where he met his wife, had his children and first discovered he wanted to become an FBI agent, said Woodriffe’s daughter.

And although her father has been honored many times — including by President Bill Clinton who renamed the FBI field office in honor of five agents who died in the line of duty — Woodriffe believes it's crucial he be remembered by Brooklyn as well.

“It serves as an inspiration to young African American boys and girls, that it doesn’t matter what your temporary circumstances are,” said Woodriffe. “There was a black man from this neighborhood who became an FBI agent and he did it through hard work.”

But Woodriffe’s reasons for wanting to honor her father are similar to those of members of The East, who have expressed deep concerns about renaming the block in his name.

The East came to fruition in 1969 — the same year Woodriffe died — when founder Jitu Weusi opened his cultural center for people of African descent across the street from St. Peter Claver Church at 10 Claver Place, according to Weusi's obituary.

In the decades that followed, The East launched a jazz venue that once hosted Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders, and Nina Simone. The group founded Uhuru Sasa Shule – the first black independent private school in New York City – as well as one of Brooklyn’s first food co-ops, a newspaper, a radio show, and an annual block party that has since expanded to become the International African Arts Festival, said Basir Mchawi, 69, one of group’s first members.

“In terms significance, it goes beyond Claver Place, it goes nationally” said Mchawi, host of “Education at the Crossroads” on WBAI. “There has to be some kind of recognition.”

The East disbanded in 1986 and splintered into various political and cultural groups — such as the Black Veterans For Social Justice, Center for Law and Social Justice and the Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium — that still hold sway in Brooklyn today.

Its headquarters were sold to developers who turned it into an apartment building, which means Claver Place is without a memento of The East, Mchawi said.

But if The East hasn’t yet garnered a local memorial on the Bed-Stuy, Mchawi believes its memory lives on in the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“The FBI has files — you might say that we were under surveillance,” Mchawi said. “We know there were police informants who attempted to try to become active in the East. Did those police informants have a connection? It’s possible.”

Which is why both Torrence and Mchawi are concerned about Lee Ann Woodriffe’s plans to honor her father, a man they believe represents an institution that targeted them, with Claver Place sign.

“Understanding the role the FBI had in ... disbanding organizations like The East all while allowing the KKK to thrive, is troubling,” Torrence wrote in a post to the BedStuy Friends Facebook group.

“The erasure of Black Culture is occurring right under our noses and Black folks are complicit.”

Torrence and Mchawi do not believe Woodriffe is wrong to want to memorialize her father, whom Torrence referred to as “a great man from Brooklyn,” but question his significance in Brooklyn.

“This is not to plight her or her love for her father,” said Torrence. “But he didn’t serve this community.”

“Jitu Weusi, he’s a more significant figure in Bed-Stuy than an FBI agent,” added Mchawi. “I think Eric Adams would tell you that, as would every other politician in the area.”

Neither man has immediate plans to protest Woodcliffe’s petition but said they intend to educate themselves on the matter further.

Woodriffe responded to their criticism by stating her father had nothing to do with New York-based agents who might have investigated The East.

Her petition is slated to be voted on in City Council later this year and Woodriffe hopes the sign will be installed before the 50th anniversary of her father’s death in January 2019.

“My father’s wish was always to come back to Brooklyn,” said Woodriffe. “I wanted to bring his life full circle and I don’t want it to end at Cypress Hills Cemetery."

"I want to end it looking up seeing his name on that corner.”

Photo courtesy of the FBI and GoogleMaps/Nov. 2016

Correction: This story was initially published with a typo that misspelled Jitu Weusi's last name.