Anthony and I sat down one Sunday morning, after we both attended church with our respective families at our respective places of worship, and talked about the past, the present, and the future in Stratford politics. In speaking with Anthony, I wanted to learn more about him and acknowledge his role as the first Black chair of the Stratford Town Council.
We met a few days before the first Town Council meeting of 2026 on Wednesday, January 12th. Our conversation touched on many different areas: being in service, family, and community. Once an avid soccer player with dreams to go pro, Anthony Afriyie has undoubtedly dedicated his professional career to serving his community.
Easing into his second year as a Town Council Member representing District 5, Anthony was unanimously voted in by his peers to serve as chair on the council. As chair, “I help to run the meetings for the town council and ensure they run promptly, and that we have decorum. The meetings run smoothly, promptly, and I try to keep it at a steady pace so that everyone’s voice is part of the collective conversation,” he says.
As a Black man from an immigrant family, born in the Bronx and raised in Stratford, Anthony brings a unique and well-rounded professional experience to his role as chair. His message for people of color who have an interest in politics is: “I want people of color to understand you have a place at the table. We deserve to be seen because most often in our town history, state history, and nation’s history, we’ve always been in the background. When we talk about things that have fundamentally changed in our society, it’s always people of color standing at the front. We need them to stay engaged, and continue to take on the torch, have that fire, because it starts with us, and we are the ones to take on and create the avenues for more change to come.”
Anthony graduated from Stratford High School and then attended Western Connecticut State University, where he played soccer and received his BA in Political Science. With his soccer dreams alive and well at that point, Anthony shared, “I was gonna make it to Major League Soccer (MLS) and play for the Ghana national team. But I got cut from the soccer team my junior year and I had an existential crisis because soccer was my identity. So, I took a sabbatical.”
When he realized he needed a break, he took one. His mom swooped him up, and together they spent time traveling around Europe and eventually spent time with their family in Ghana. “I saw the world in a different way when I got back,” he says, “and I wanted to help and facilitate a way for us to move forward.”
Once he returned from his sabbatical, Anthony went on to get his Master’s Degree in Public Administration, Urban Development & Sustainability, and has since committed his life to public service. He works full time for the Connecticut Port Authority as their Community Liaison, and has served in an array of political offices from the U.S. House of Representatives to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Civic engagement and working for change begins with a dream, and that is exactly what Anthony has for the place he calls home. “My dream is that when you think about waterfront communities in Connecticut, Stratford is very unique in its assets. We have public infrastructure that is adjacent to NYC and Boston. We have environmental assets like our beaches, our forests, like our marsh. We have all these things that so many municipalities wish they had, and I want to help facilitate, proactively planning how we upgrade, how we continue to improve and how we continue to grow access to that.” “Not many people can go into a community [saying], ‘I am a young person and I want to buy a house’. Some people might be boxed out,” he says. “But in Stratford, that dream is still a reality. And it’s achievable for a lot of people, so it’s really about making sure that people can still attain that mobility. Make sure people still believe in the American dream, and I feel like Stratford is a really great example of how we continue in that tradition.”
