It was a chilly April day when I visited, but the daffodils and sunflowers were blooming at the 400 Montauk Avenue Block Association Community Garden, at the corner of New Lots and Montauk Avenues in East New York. Rosemary, strawberry plants, and a variety of hardy sage were also thriving.

I didn’t have to wait long before garden comanager, thirty-one-year-old Keron Alleyne, appeared with his son, Khari, an inquisitive and bespectacled kindergartner. As Khari scrambled about, Alleyne, wearing dreads and a light green dress shirt, explained that neighborhood elders have ran the garden for decades, but he has been officially comanaging it for the past six years. Then again, Alleyne’s relationship to the garden goes back a lot further than that: when he was Khari’s age, he used to help his grandfather tend it. Alleyne invited me to try the peppermint, which I did. He showed me the beds where, some years, they plant kale and even enormous pumpkins. The community garden at 400 Montauk Avenue is one of fifty-seven in East New York, which is one of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. But the garden isn’t the only gift to the community that Alleyne has inherited from his grandparents’ generation.

The neighborhood elders’ commitment to the common good went even beyond the hard work of tending their gardens and includes a rich history of socialist political education and organizing. Alleyne, a candidate for New York State’s 60th assembly district this year, recently endorsed by New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA), seeks to carry on that tradition.