Meet Your Electeds: Congressman Edolphus "Ed" Towns

Congressman Edolhpus “Ed” Towns (D-NY) may not be a New York City native, but after moving here at age 23, he’s become one of the city’s most enduring, formidable politicians.  

When he’s not busy improving race relations and the educational system, he finds time to follow in his father’s footsteps as an ordained minister, preaching in the “Borough of Churches.”

Recently, Rep. Towns and his Communications Director Julian Philips, discussed with Bed-Stuy Patch everything from growing up in North Carolina to working alongside his politically auspicious son, Daryl Towns.

Mr. Towns is a stout man with a clean-shaved head. He wears smart rimless glasses befitting a man with seven honorary doctoral degrees. He studied sociology as an undergraduate student at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Soon after, he moved to upstate New York to attend Adelphi University.  It was during his college years, Phillips says, when “Congressman Towns became involved in politics. He got involved in student government.”

However, it would be many years before Towns would begin a career in politics. First, he worked as a social worker, educator and as an administrator at Beth Israel Hospital. 

Similar to his mentor, Shirley Chisholm, who was the first African-American woman elected to Congress, Towns broke barriers by becoming Brooklyn’s first African-American Deputy Borough President in 1978 at roughly 44 years of age. 

Over the years, African Americans have made progress in both the political and corporate world, but “blacks are still the last hired and the first fired,” Towns said. “We still have a long way to go.”  He believes race relations is one of the top-three things that need improving here in Brooklyn. 

He was elected to Congress in 1982 representing Brooklyn’s 10th Congressional District, which includes the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. On November 2, 2010, he was elected to his 15th term in the United States House of Representatives. 

Towns lives with his wife, the Gwen Forbes, in Cypress Hills/East New York, where he raised his two children, Daryl and Diedra. 

Daryl has followed his father into politics. Recently, Governor Cuomo appointed him commissioner and chief executive of New York State Homes and Community Renewal. When asked what it’s been like for Towns to work alongside his son, Phillips said, “The Congressman has worked very well with his son.”

Sure, but what happens when they don’t agree?  “If they do have any disputes, the Congressman hands it over to Daryl’s mother to straighten it out,” he chuckled.

The disputes in Washington, though, aren’t so easily settled.  “We are too partisan in Washington,” Towns admitted.  “We must embrace good ideas that will move the country forward—regardless of the party that comes up with them.”

In the same vein, Towns said that if he could express one core message to the American people, it would be: “If someone is in pain we should all feel it.”

Despite ceding the chairmanship of the Government Oversight and Reform Committee when Democrats lost control of Congress, Towns continues to push bold, progressive legislation.  

Going forward, he is committed to improving health care services (he supports Obama’s controversial health care bill), strengthening the national education system by reducing not only class size but also school size, and continuing to protect consumers from faulty products.