Lawrence Street, NAACP's past president of Eastern Long Island branch, dies at 71

Lawrence Street, a teacher who led the Eastern Long Island branch of the NAACP amid the COVID-19 pandemic and appealed for peaceful protests after the murder of George Floyd, has died.

Street died Wednesday of pancreatic cancer at a Westhampton Beach hospice, according to a sister, Lauretta Street, of Riverhead. He was 71. 

Street taught for years in Riverhead and Southampton and at Eastern Suffolk BOCES and worked as a school administrator in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he lived for about 10 years because of health concerns, Lauretta Street said.

After years of work with the NAACP’s Eastern Long Island chapter in roles that included treasurer, Street was named president in 2020, taking over from longtime leader Lucius Ware. He led the group until 2025.

Kiesha Washington-Dean, chapter secretary for the Eastern Long Island NAACP, said that under Street’s leadership, the group had established a yearly jazz brunch fundraiser and an endowment in partnership with Suffolk County Community College. Street also advocated for families of children in Riverhead schools, she said.

After Floyd’s killing, Washington-Dean said, Street advocated for peaceful protest.

"That’s what Larry stood for," she said. "We didn’t want to go out and riot and break our communities that we lived in all our lives. Most of us on the NAACP have been here, locally, all our lives. We wanted to do it the right way."

Street told hundreds gathered in Riverhead’s Strotzky Park to protest Floyd's killing by a Minneapolis police officer: "Let's do this peacefully, together," according to Dan’s Papers, the Hamptons publication, in a 2020 story. "The only way that we can make a difference right now is that we need to vote. ... Get out and vote." 

In 2022, at a Martin Luther King commemoration at Riverhead Free Library, Street read King's "Mountaintop" speech and urged attendees to write letters to their elected representatives asking them to support voting rights legislation then being debated in Congress. Failure to pass the legislation "will put our voting rights in jeopardy and have a profound impact on people of color and their vote," he said, Newsday reported. The legislation has not been enacted.

Street was born June 18, 1954, at Southampton Hospital. His mother, the former Laura Frances Cooper, was a home health aide; his father, William Lee Street, worked in housekeeping for the hospital. Lawrence Street attended Riverhead High School, where he served as student body president, and in the mid-1970s graduated from Southampton College with a bachelor's degree and Dowling College with a master’s degree.

Georgette Grier-Key, NAACP’s Long Island regional director, said Street succeeded in a role that had always been challenging because of the size of the East End and the number of local governments.

“He did a yeoman’s job,” Grier-Key said of Street's stewardship of the Eastern Long Island branch.

Former Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton), who knew Street for decades — first as a Southampton College student when Bishop was director of financial aid, later as an advocate when Bishop was an officeholder — called him a "significant presence" on Long Island’s East End.

"Larry called me this past summer to tell me he was dying and he wanted me to speak at his memorial service," Bishop said. "It was sobering, bracing, surprising. Larry and I could go months at a time without talking to one another, but we always engaged with great joy, seeing one another. To get that phone call made me very sad."

Besides Lauretta Street, survivors include sisters Brenda Street, of Mastic, Kimberly West, of North Carolina, and brother Christopher Street, of San Francisco. He is also survived by his mother, Laura Street, of Riverhead. He was predeceased by his brother Barry Street, of Riverhead, and sister Venetia Smith, of Yaphank.

Street was cremated. A memorial will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday at First Baptist Church in Bridgehampton. Bishop will be among the speakers.

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.