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New York's Latest Tea Party Celebrates Official Status with Black Power Salute

By DNAinfo Staff on August 20, 2010 4:40pm  | Updated on August 20, 2010 4:42pm

By Yepoka Yeebo

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

HELL'S KITCHEN — The New York State Tea Party celebrated officially becoming a party on the Hudson River on Friday in a ceremony complete with a black power salute.

Helena Edwards, a Mount Vernon blogger, raised her fist in a black power salute as she spoke about limiting government intervention at the celebration on the Hudson.

"I come to you from the Caribbean, where we go to school and work hard for ourselves," she said.

During the ceremony, Edwards, who also runs the blog "Straight Talk in Mount Vernon," also called out "power to the people" as organizers stressed the diversity of the party and its supporters.

"We have all castes, all nationalities, all religious, everybody is here," said Sam Kapadia, president of the Jackson Heights Indian Merchants' Association.

"We really need a change, the economy if affecting the daily lives of lots of people," said Kapadia, 66, from Queens.

Sam Zherka promised an independent party that would not be not controlled by Democrats or Republicans.

Supporters and activists celebrated collecting enough signatures to file as a party with several hundred tea bags — which were not dumped into the Hudson River, as originally planned.

Dongling Wu, 20, from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn helped collect the 50, 000 signatures the party needed to register with the State Board of Elections.

"I'm here because I believe in the party, and because there's strength in numbers," she said.

The party, which is different from the other New York iteration, the T.E.A Party, also launched Long Island lawyer Steve Cohn's bid for Governor of New York on the Tea Party ticket. Cohn promised to fight corruption and the high taxes that affected small businesses.

Samuel L. Rivers, who is standing as a Democrat in an upstate race, said negative impressions of the tea party were unfair.

"The Tea Party has been spun in the media as racist," Rivers, 30, said. While he admitted there were racist elements in the party, he said that was true of all political movements.

"The KKK came from the Democratic party, he said. "But you don't hear about that."