Mamdani went on a hunger strike with this cab driver in 2021. He drove the NYC mayor to his inauguration four years later
In 2021, Richard Chow, a New York City taxi cab driver, went on a hunger strike alongside then-Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani to fight for more debt relief for cabbies who had been victims of financial schemes.
Thursday, a little more than four years after the successful hunger strike, Chow dropped Mamdani off at City Hall to be inaugurated as the mayor.
“I’m very happy,” Chow told City and State NY at the inauguration celebration. “Congratulations to him.”
It was a full-circle moment for both Chow and the new mayor, who spent 15 days camped outside of City Hall on a hunger strike in October and November 2021 to fight for further relief for the city’s cab drivers who had been preyed upon by exploitive business practices.
Chow was especially passionate about the fight because his brother, Kenny, died by suicide as a result of crushing debt caused by “The Medallion Crisis.”
Mamdani, early in his political career at the time, sat with Chow and other members of the union, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, until then-mayor Bill de Blasio secured more money with the help of Senator Chuck Schumer.
For Mamdani, fighting for taxi drivers aligned with his own identity because many drivers are immigrants, with 40 percent from South Asia, according to the New York Times. Those individuals who came to New York seeking a better life had been swindled into owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to predatory lenders.
“What I will go through pales in comparison to what Richard is going to go through and what so many other of the drivers are going to go through,” Mamdani said of the hunger strike to MotherJones at the time.
“The face of this hunger strike are people who have ruined their bodies for the city. Sitting in a chair for up to 16 hours a day. Developing all sorts of complications from the fact that they sit for that long. The fact that they do not have bathrooms that are available for them to use. The fact that they are forever trying to find any kind of parking just to get lunch, to get dinner,” Mamdani added.
Mamdani’s support for the taxi drivers ultimately landed him with supporters in the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, some of whom, including Chow, canvassed for Mamdani when he announced his campaign for mayor.
Kuber Sancho-Persad, also a taxi driver who met Mamdani during the 2021 hunger strike, has supported the mayor’s campaign and attended his inauguration on Thursday.
Over the last year, Chow has shown up at Mamdani’s events and used social media to endorse the 34-year-old candidate, calling Mamdani a “hero” and thanking him for “saving our lives.”
But in his latest act of gratitude toward Mamdani, Chow dropped the new mayor and first lady, Rama Duwaji, off to begin the next four years overseeing New York City.
