Blackwell picks NY Democrat as campaign co-chair

WILBERFORCE PRESIDENT FLOYD FLAKE NAMED BLACKWELL CO-CHAIRMAN

Gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell today named the Rev. Dr. Floyd Flake, president of Wilberforce University and a former Democratic congressman from New York as a campaign co-chairman.

"I am honored and humbled by Rev. Flake’s support of my gubernatorial campaign," the Republican secretary of state said in a news statement. "He is providing our nation’s oldest historically black college with principled, prudent and inspirational leadership. Rev. Flake will bring those same outstanding leadership qualities to my campaign."

Flake is senior pastor at the 23,000-member Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral of New York in Jamaica, Queens. The cathedral’s economic development corporation is the second largest private employer in Queens. Blackwell campaign spokesman Carlo LoParo said the Greater Allen A. M. E. business model is taught as a case study at Harvard Business School.

Flake represented Queens in Congress from 1987 to 1997, where he was a leading advocate of urban revitalization and economic empowerment policies.

Flake commutes weekly from Queens to Wilberforce. The nation's oldest black college was established before the Civil War and was a destination on the Ohio Underground Railroad.