Ethan Wolin, Contributing Photographer

Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers drew attention to the hardships of working-class and racially marginalized New Haveners in a speech on Monday evening, carrying the perennial priorities of Yale unions into the second Trump era.

Walker-Myers, who represents West River’s Ward 23 and has served as the board’s president since 2015, delivered the annual State of the City address for the board’s Black and Hispanic Caucus.

“The suffering in the Black and brown communities has been going on so long, some residents have lost hope and even given up on the American dream,” Walker-Myers said, citing the quarter of New Haven residents who she said live in poverty. “Our city must deliver on the promise of the American dream, even while national leaders work tirelessly to undermine that.”

The 24-minute speech served as a rallying cry for her colleagues and the UNITE HERE unions, whose members helped fill the Aldermanic Chambers — a show of political force at a nationwide lowpoint for progressive activists. Walker-Myers works as the chief steward of UNITE HERE Local 35, Yale’s union of service and maintenance workers.

After the Black and Hispanic Caucus’ leaders ceremonially entered the room and its chair spoke briefly, Walker-Myers began her speech by criticizing President Donald Trump’s policies in general terms.

She devoted the bulk of her remarks to the longtime struggles of many residents of color dating back to racial segregation and UNITE HERE’s persisting efforts to promote “racial, economic and social justice.”

She commended workers at the Omni New Haven Hotel who went on strike in September, and called for state lawmakers to pass legislation that would aid striking workers. 

Walker-Myers gave particular attention to Yale, celebrating the board’s past success in pushing the University to belatedly fulfill its promises to hire from underprivileged New Haven neighborhoods. She also mentioned the Center for Inclusive Growth, which emerged from a 2021 town-gown agreement.

The speech came two and a half months after Mayor Justin Elicker delivered his own State of the City speech to the Board of Alders. The board president echoed the mayor’s focus on affordable housing and demands for more education funding from the state, but her speech emphasized Yale’s relationship with the city in contrast to New Haven’s poorest residents.

“It saddens me to say sometimes that we have the best Ivy League school in the world right here in our city — and that’s a great thing, right? — and still so many of our kids are below grade level in reading,” she said.

Elicker, who sat in the third row of the public section to watch Walker-Myers’ address, told the News afterwards that the city has to negotiate further with Yale next year to prevent its current annual voluntary contribution from dropping.

“That would be incredibly damaging to us and is very much on my mind,” he said, adding that Walker-Myers is “someone that will be effective at helping us make a lot of progress.”

Eddie Camp, a UNITE HERE researcher who was among the crowd of union affiliates to attend the speech, called Walker-Myers a “fighter” for disadvantaged New Haveners and for the union.

Walker-Myers turned from her apparent calls for more Yale funding to discussing a University research initiative about the institution’s ties to slavery. She honored former Alder Tom Ficklin, who died in October, two months after proposing an aldermanic resolution that would apologize for the city’s involvement — on top of Yale’s — in preventing the creation of a new Black college in New Haven in 1831.

The resolution has languished since the summer. Asked by the News whether she planned to revive it, Walker-Myers said she planned to discuss it with colleagues, alongside actions beyond an apology. Walker-Myers focused on her aspirations to harness municipal power at the end of her speech.

“This is the year we’re going to get real uneasy, some people going to get real uncomfortable,” she said. “We’re going to do some things outside the box. Lots of people might not be happy, but this is something that’s necessary.”

In an interview after the meeting, Walker-Myers declined to specify what policies she was referring to but said she and her colleagues would develop new ideas in conversations with constituents around the city.

Walker-Myers is the board’s first woman president.