Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 28, 1995                   TAG: 9511290005
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EX-MAYOR'S EXILED PHOTOGRAPH RETURNS TO THE FRONT OF THE ROOM

Once again, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

A little more than a month ago, Gainsboro activist Evelyn Bethel chided City Council for "passive racism."

The evidence of it was plain to see on the walls of council chambers in City Hall, Bethel said at an Oct. 16 public meeting.

Former mayor Noel Taylor's photograph, once displayed prominently in City Council chambers near the entrance, had been moved to the back of the room. For months before she brought it up publicly, Bethel tried to convince officials to move it back near the door.

It appears her public comments did the trick.

Without fanfare, someone carefully rearranged mayoral portraits in council chambers. Taylor's picture is once again near the entrance, closer to Mayor David Bowers' photograph than any of the others. All the other past mayors' pictures were also rearranged to accommodate the change.

"It's beautiful. It's historically correct," a satisfied Bethel said during a break in council proceedings Monday afternoon.

City officials declined to say exactly when they made the change. And they refused to acknowledge that Bethel's tearful pleas last month had anything to do with it.

The order of the pictures is changed "every now and then," City Clerk Mary Parker said. The pictures had been moved sometime during the last two weeks, she added.

"I'll do most anything to try and make people in Roanoke happier," Bowers said.

Asked if the photos would have been rearranged if Bethel hadn't spoken out publicly about it, Bowers declined to answer.

"I'll answer that one," said the Rev. Charles Green, president of the Roanoke chapter of the NAACP. "The answer is no."