Biography

Cory Booker, elected mayor of Newark, New Jersey, in 2006, came by his civil-rights activism at an early age. His parents, Carolyn Rose (Jordan) and Cary Alfred Booker, were among the first black executives at IBM. Booker was born in Washington, D.C., but grew up in Harrington Park, a mostly white suburban town in northern New Jersey. He studied at California's Stanford University, earning a B.A. in political science and an M.A. in sociology. He was a star football player and was elected to the student government council. He won a Rhodes Scholarship to Queens College, Oxford, England, obtaining an honors degree in modern history in 1994. He met Rabbi Shmuley Boteach there and became president of the L'Chaim Society, an organization devoted to easing tensions between Jews and African-Americans. After returning to the U.S., Booker attended Yale Law School, graduating in 1997. He then started several free legal clinics for low-income residents of the neighboring city of New Haven, CT. Re

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Filmography