THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 1, 1995 TAG: 9507010470
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
It was her moment.
But we all dressed in our Sunday best as if it were our moment. Ladies lipsticked, high-heeled and in hats like whole flowers blooming over wide brims. Men in paisley ties and smokey suits so suave.
Everybody I know in Hampton Roads who is black and about anything was gathered in the Chesapeake City Council chambers, their perfumes mingled with perspiration in the humidity of a Friday afternoon in June.
Half of us couldn't even see her, could barely hear her. But this was another African American first, and the feeling was what was most important.
Eileen Anita Olds - native daughter, sister girlfriend, community outreach worker, distinguished criminal attorney - was about to be robed as the first African American and female judge in Chesapeake's history.
And if, in the words of the U.S. Supreme Court's most recent affirmative action decision, you strictly scrutinize her credentials, you will find that she is well qualified: University of Virginia undergraduate, William and Mary Law School, nine years of private practice.
About the chambers, I saw some septuagenarian ladies in those hats, leaning on canes. They are ladies who knew raw segregation. They had to be here for this moment. When the ceremony was over, they wore a look that seemed to say, ``Now, I can die in peace.''
``I feel like it's late coming, but it's very timely,'' said Myrna Nelson Matthews, a retired schoolteacher. ``She'll serve as a catalyst for the young people coming behind her. I can't speak for all of us, but I think we blacks are swelling with pride.''
NAACP Area II Chairman Paul Gillis and Chesapeake NAACP President March Cromuel leaned back proudly like the granddaddies of the local civil rights movement that they are. ``This is sweet,'' said Gillis. ``So very very sweet only because it's Eileen Olds.''
Girls in white lace dresses tippy-toed to see the sight. Tarrah Page, a 10-year-old at Southern Elementary School, had volunteered to usher. ``I just wanted to be here,'' she said.
Daddies lifted other girls on shoulders for a better view. Mothers pinned fidgety boys firmly between arms and knees to lock their eyes on this vision.
These were black children in the City of Chesapeake who had never seen another African American in a robe seated upon a bench, had never seen brown fingers rap a gavel.
Whites can take for granted the sight of one another in positions of power and authority. African Americans cannot.
We strained and craned our necks to see. Weight shifted from one foot to the other as those high heels started to pinch and ache. But we kept on standing.
It is as if the strain and awkward angles of our bodies were an answer to anyone anywhere who ever complained about affirmative action or filed a reverse discrimination suit. The reply was simply: Have you ever waited 25, 50 years, a century?
Perspiration tickling down my back, I wondered how many years our collective wait for firsts would add up to.
The phenomenon of ``the first'' to break a color barrier is one that you can't really understand unless you live in the skin of an African American. It can reflect at once both victory and defeat, righteousness and indignity, progress and the slow pace of justice. by CNB