Jabari Brisport: Biography

Early Life and Family Background

Jabari Brisport was born on August 9, 1987, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York . He was raised in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where his family had resided for three generations . Brisport is a third-generation Caribbean-American: His father immigrated from Guyana and entered the United States without legal documentation, and his mother was born in Brooklyn to Guyanese immigrant parents . His father worked in a sheet metal factory, while his mother served as an office manager and was a member of the Communications Workers of America union . Brisport has described growing up in a household with strong ties to civic participation, accompanying his mother to vote at a local elementary school as a child .

Education

Brisport was admitted to the Prep for Prep program, a competitive scholarship initiative that places high-achieving students of color in private secondary schools . Through the program, he attended Poly Prep Country Day School in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, graduating in 2005 . He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2009 . Brisport then pursued graduate studies at the Yale School of Drama, receiving a Master of Fine Arts in acting in 2014 .

Acting and Teaching Career

After completing his studies at Yale, Brisport pursued professional acting, performing in theatrical productions with political themes . He has cited his senior-year performance in Ragtime at Poly Prep and a devised piece on income inequality at the Yale Cabaret as formative artistic experiences . He also worked as an SAT instructor with Kaplan Test Prep .

Brisport subsequently transitioned into education, becoming a mathematics teacher at a public middle school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where he instructed sixth- and seventh-grade students . He was an active member of the United Federation of Teachers during this period . His experiences as a public school teacher, particularly witnessing how housing insecurity and chronic underfunding affected his students, became a central motivation for his eventual entry into politics .

Activism

Brisport became politically active more than a decade before entering electoral politics. In 2009, he began organizing in support of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York . The bill was defeated that year, but Brisport continued organizing around the issue until same-sex marriage was legalized in the state in 2011 . He subsequently became involved in the early Black Lives Matter movement, organizing rallies and protests and training demonstrators on how to respond if stopped or confronted by police . He has also been involved in animal rights activism .

Personal Life

Brisport is openly gay and, upon his election to the New York State Senate in 2020, became the first openly gay person of color to serve in the New York State Legislature . He identifies as a democratic socialist and has been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America since April 2017 . He is a close friend and former roommate of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani .