Biography
Tolbert was born and raised in Harlem. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, where he was a classmate of Christopher "Kid" Reid, the rap musician and actor, and John T. Georgopoulos, a fantasy sports writer. He later earned a bachelor's degree from Hunter College. He had lived in Harlem with his wife, Freida Foster-Tolbert.
In his intense career in politics, Tolbert worked at the New York State Senate Minority Program Office in Albany. He served on the staff of State Senators Martin Connor and Joseph Galiber, and for Representative Charles B. Rangel.
He was the chief of staff to New York State Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright for eight years. In 2003 and 2004, Tolbert was the New York state director for the presidential campaign of John Edwards. Tolbert had taken a leave from his position as chief of staff to Assemblyman Wright, who was in turn supporting John Kerry's presidential bid.
After leaving the Edwards campaign in 2004, Tolbert was the Nevada state director of America Coming Together, a 527 group dedicated to get out the vote efforts, primarily for Democratic candidates. Tolbert served as the liaison to ethnic, religious and cultural groups in the city for Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg in his bid for a second term in the 2005 mayoral election. He had also worked on the campaigns of Senator Chuck Schumer and former Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer.
Tolbert was hired by the New York City Department of Education in 2006, serving as its primary representative in Albany, New York and Washington, D.C. lobbying on behalf of Bloomberg's efforts to extend the law due to expire in June 2009 that grants the mayor primary authority over the New York City public schools.
He took a leave of absence from the Department of Education in July to work in Nevada as state director for the Obama campaign, with the Democrats making a strong effort in a state that had traditionally been solidly Republican. Barack Obama took Nevada's five electoral votes, defeating John McCain by a 56%-42% margin, carrying Nevada by 120,000 votes in a state the George W. Bush had won by 20,000 votes in the 2004 election.
On the evening of November 2, 2008, in North Las Vegas, Nevada, Tolbert suffered a heart attack while driving alone near the Obama campaign offices. He was taken to North Vista Hospital and died there, aged 44.
Read more about this topic: Terence Tolbert
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)