THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 26, 1996 TAG: 9601260508
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Lake Edward community activists were on a first-name basis with Barbara Jordan.
The way they talk about the former Texas congresswoman, who died last week, you'd think she had been a neighbor and civic group member.
Thursday evening, as some left townhouses or apartments in the beleaguered Virginia Beach housing development, heading to the monthly civic meeting, they remembered Jordan - one of the first two blacks elected to Congress from the South since Reconstruction.
They still hear that voice.
When Jordan spoke her booming, super-enunciated baritone, it seemed very possible that God is a woman. Today, it echoes in their collective memory, coaching them to pull harder in the tug of war with urban ills - even if the rope badly burns their hands.
This is the strongest testimony to Jordan's greatness. Her gigantic will inspired everyday folk - teachers aides, mechanics - to realize and exercise their power as citizens in a democracy.
The group in Lake Edward knows that Barbara approves.
Of their voter registration campaign.
Of their firm appeals to City Council for improved building code enforcement and police patrols.
And most importantly, Jordan's justice-loving ghost nods on their efforts to support the young folk of Lake Edward with a scholarship.
Many youths are on the right track. But too many rove the streets in gangs, intimidating residents. And Lake Edward is one of three city areas with a high teen birth rate.
``I'm determined to better the conditions of this area, especially for young people - they don't even have a recreation center,'' said Michone Lane, a resident, wife and mother of 13-year-old Torey. ``Barbara had determination that you cannot get anything done just sitting around talking about it. You have to be a doer.''
That's why - even after working hard all day - Lane doesn't even think about feeling tired on the evenings when the nearby Wesleyan Forest Civic League meets.
``Things which matter cost money, and we've got to spend the money if we do not want to have generations of parasites rather than generations of productive citizens,'' Jordan said in ``I Dream A World,'' a photo essay of history-making, African-American women.
In her photo, Jordan gazes with bold, sharp-eyed intelligence from the wheelchair that could not cripple her after multiple sclerosis struck.
Now, don't misunderstand. Barbara Jordan wasn't someone these activists talked about all the time. No. Barbara herself wouldn't have approved of that.
But the way she went about things, conducting her business in the halls of Congress - that's what guides them.
During the 1974 House Judiciary Committee hearings on Watergate, one nervous representative's voice trembled. Another's agony was apparent on his face.
But ``Barbara came across with measured reason and logical passion, not hysteria. The intelligence, humanity and dignity of this woman was so great,'' remembered a Lake Edward Civic League member who gave her name as Nancy.
``She was a very dignified person, and I liked the way she carried herself,'' said league president Sandra Fenner, who works for Chesapeake schools. ``I just hope that as a leader I will be able to project that kind of dignity.''
When Michele Galdun moved into Lake Edward five years ago, she saw a drug deal go down practically on her front lawn. Though busy as a college student, wife and mother of a teenage daughter, she tries hard to stay involved.
``One of the things about Barbara is that she was a self-defined woman,'' said Galdun.
``I realized that those are the only people who get involved, those who go against that voice in the back of your head that says, `Don't get involved. It's not your fight.' Throughout her life, Barbara exhibited the attitude that, yes, it is your fight.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Barbara Jordan
by CNB