Almira Kennedy Coursey

Almira Kennedy Coursey (June 5, 1914 - August 26, 1996) was a community activist and organizer based in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for advocating for the renovation and redevelopment of Herbert Von King Park.

Early life Almira Kennedy Coursey was born on June 5, 1914, in New Bern, North Carolina to Augustus T. and Juanita C. Kennedy. At St. Augustine, she worked as the assistant to the dean of women for the college, a role that she held throughout the 1930s. In the late 1930s, she worked as a teacher in Clayton, North Carolina, and developed the "Three W's" program for teen girls, which instilled values of womanhood, wholesome recreation, and willingness to serve.

Brooklyn activism and education work In 1940, Coursey moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where she worked as a teacher and later the assistant principal at Macon Junior High School, also known as Intermediate School 258. She met and married Henry Ellis Coursey not long after arriving in New York, and they went on to have three children together. Other notable female activists in the CBCC included Shirley Chisholm and Lucille Rose. Through the affiliated Tompkins Park Committee, also known as the Tompkins Park Recreation and Cultural Association, Coursey lobbied the city to improve Herbert Von King Park, then known as Tompkins Park. Her advocacy eventually led to the construction of the Kosciuszko Pool, designed by Morris Lapidus, as well as renovations to the park's facilities and the addition of the Eubie Blake Auditorium, the Herbert Von King Cultural Arts Center, and Little League fields in 1969. In 1967, Coursey led organizing efforts to establish a community daycare in Bed-Stuy, which supported the Young Mothers Program. Coursey continued her advocacy work into the 1970s, and served on city-wide committees for poverty and education under the mayoral administrations of Robert F. Wagner and John Lindsay.