Scherie Murray was born in Jamaica, West Indies, and came to New York City with her family when she was nine. Growing up in Southeast Queens, Scherie learned early on about the importance of hard work, the value of a good education and the strength of a united community.
Scherie went to I.S. 192 where she was a gymnast. She then graduated with an outstanding community service award from the Law, Government and Community Service Magnet High School (formerly Andrew Jackson H.S.) and became the captain of her high school’s gymnastics team.
When she was 17, Scherie worked as a systems analyst for the NYC MTA Jamaica Bus Depot. While earning her Associate of Applied Science in Micro Computer Business Systems and a Bachelor of Science in Broadcast Journalism, Scherie taught gymnastics for an after-school program in Far Rockaway, Queens. She also volunteered and served as senior editor on her college newspaper – The New Tech Times.
In 2004, Scherie had a vision of starting her own company. With a mission to address the lack of minorities in media, Scherie created The Esemel Group. Through advertising, production and programming work, Esemel generated employment opportunities for minorities in New York City.
Scherie is also a proud Veterans advocate and continually works to revitalize her district by advocating for small businesses and economic development, promoting more school choices for parents, strengthening community police relations with commonsense solutions, and starting a larger dialogue around comprehensive immigration reform.
In a video entitled “Bridges” posted on Wednesday Murray states that AOC “chooses self-promotion over service, conflict over constituents, resistance over assistance.”
“Queens and the Bronx need someone who will create jobs instead of turning them away,” she said. A poll in March found Ocasio-Cortez to be the “top villain” in Amazon’s decision to pull out of New York City after naming the Big Apple as one of the locations for HQ2 after she complained about the tax breaks they were going to receive and said the company paid “starvation wages.”
Watch the video below:
Murray enters a five-way primary that includes former police officer John Cummings, medical journalist Ruth Papazian, construction contractor Miguel Hernandez and entrepreneur Antoine Tucker.
Murray is a compelling candidate to counter AOC in the incredibly diverse and heavily Democratic congressional district. Whoever wins the Republican primary will have to sway Democrats in order to have a shot in the general.
Murray may be a candidate who can do that.
