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The Last Activist, Host of Winbrook Like It Is Hit by Unlicensed Driver.
Posted on Monday, January 26 @ 08:02:56 EST by jfbailey
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WPCNR "WINBROOK LIKE IT IS". By John F. Bailey. January 26, 2004, Updated 10:30 P.M. E.S.T.: The lone voice of Winbrook, the city's landmark urban renewal project, dubbed "The Last Activist" by White Plains Week for his fearless lobbying over the years, is recuperating from being struck by an autombile Friday afternoon, and is recovering with a swollen hand. Monday afternoon, Mr. Jackson reported that the Official Police Report of his accident said the driver of the car, also from White Plains, 22 years old, was unlicensed and that his mother was the owner of the car.
THE LAST ACTIVIST, Ron Jackson, shown here outside Democratic Party Headquarters in March, 2003, said of his vehicular encounter, Mr. Jackson said he had suffered a mild stroke two weeks previously and was crossing Fisher Court slowly, when a vehicle backing the wrong way into the one-way street hit him. "I was looking left, not looking right," Jackson told WPCNR, and the vehicle backing down into Fisher Court blind-sided him on the right side of his body, striking his hand and right arm and knocking him to the street. Photo from WPCNR News Archives.
Ron Jackson is the man whose stubborn resistance to the White Plains Housing Authority plans to build a new headquarters on the Fisher Court quadrangle across from the Thomas A. Slater Center, helped create a better solution for Winbrook. He is also the man whose plain talk at Common Council meetings brings up issues of importance to his community. Jackson also hosts a weekly television interview show on WPPA-TV, Public Access Television, the Spirit of 76, Winbrook Like It Is.
The vehicle was driven by a White Plains man, 22, with a woman passenger, 33, also of White Plains and a young girl, 12, believed related to the young man, was also in the car. The vehicle was described by Mr. Jackson to WPCNR as a Subaru 4x4, hit him while the vehicle was backing up Westbound on the Fisher Court drive between the Winbrook campus and the Slater Center, at an undetermined speed. Jackson who says he weighs 215 pounds was flung to the pavement, hitting his head.
Jackson believes the vehicle was backing up into Fisher to claim a parking space on the interior of Fisher Court after having turned onto Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, stopped and started backing up what Mr. Jackson described as "a long distance," about 10 feet Westbound on Fisher Court. Mr. Jackson said he was struck crossing near Winbrook Building 213 Fisher Court, on his way to the Slater Center, where he is employed.
Jackson told WPCNR, that the driver got out of his vehicle, to check to see if he was all right. A passerby, Mr. Jackson now says, decided to call the police by a cellphone. Jackson said his hand was x-rayed at White Plains Hospital Center and he was released. Jackson said he did not know whether police have charged the driver with any violation.
Jackson told WPCNR he is thankful to be alive. He said he never saw the vehicle because he was crossing a one-way street (Fisher is oneway Eastbound, emptying into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard which is oneway Northbound).
He had been making his way from Post Road Pharmacy on Post Road, with Denise Brooks who works at the Housing Authority offices at 223 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard at the time. After having bid Ms. Brooks adieu at the Housing Authority offices, Jackson continued to the Slater Center where he was struck at Fisher Court.
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