THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 21, 1996 TAG: 9602210042
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Profile
SOURCE: Terri Williams
LENGTH: Long : 165 lines
PAUL C. GILLIS stood on 14th Street N.W. as Washington, D.C., burned around him. It was the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, and Gillis knew he had to make a choice.
``People were handing you televisions,'' Gillis recalled. ``I was right there in civilian clothes, and I didn't know what to do. I was hurt. I wanted to riot, too.''
But he didn't.
Gillis was there to pick up his girlfriend Zenobia, who is now his wife. An Army private stationed at nearby Fort Belvoir, Va., Gillis picked up Zenobia and went back on base. That night, his unit stood on alert as the nation reeled, but Gillis never left the base.
In the nearly three decades since, Paul Calvin Gillis has become much more than a spectator. The 50-year-old prison counselor has gotten involved - with a leadership style that's a mixture of the militant and the mainstream.
Gillis is serving his second two-year term as president of the Suffolk-Nansemond Branch of the NAACP, and was recently elected president of the Virginia State Conference of the NAACP. He is often a vocal - some would say abrasive - critic at Suffolk City Council meetings. He's been urged to run for council, but has declined because he wants to run for the School Board.
The NAACP is mainstream all the way; critics call it outdated and too genteel. But Gillisis anything except low-key. His style is brash and often confrontational.
Walking the thin line between mainstream and radicalism is not new to Gillis. During the Washington riots, he sympathized with the rioters' anger, but he did not join them.
He shows his ambivalence by explaining his choice in terms that radically question the status quo.
``I didn't riot because . . . I was being brainwashed at the time. I felt America offered opportunity and equality.''
Later, he said, ``I realized that wasn't true.''
Gillis is still pained about not becoming a lawyer, a topic that momentarily brings tears to his eyes.
``I really regret most of all (that) I never had the opportunity to dream,'' he said. ``When I was growing up, I was in a community of doctors and lawyers. But I could never dream about what I wanted.
``Some dreams are limited by your environment, by the lack of encouragement you get from the community. I couldn't visualize being anything.''
He said, ``My dream was taken away from me. . . . When you can't dream, what can you do?''
Gillis' life began in the Hampton community of Aberdeen, where he learned early that segregation separated him from the white world. The middle child of seven boys, his father was a janitor at Newport News Shipbuilding and his mother was a private-duty nurse.
Gillis' school bus traveled through a white community, and he recalled that kids threw bricks at him and his classmates. Neighborhood pharmacies and restaurants didn't serve blacks.
Many blacks - including Gillis' father - remained silent. Silence meant survival for blacks in the South, Gillis explained.
But Gillis was uncomfortable keeping quiet. At 17, he staged a sit-in at the local pharmacy and was promptly thrown out. He urged neighbors to boycott.
His father was displeased, and a rift ensued. Gillis dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army.
Gillis' youngest brother, Romeo, 42, an independent broadcaster who lives in Hampton, recalled Paul as the most political of the brothers. ``Paul has always fought battles, but Daddy wasn't happy. He'd (Paul) always take on something even to the detriment of himself.''
In the military, discrimination made promotions tough, and killing in Vietnam left emotional wounds.
``It didn't affect me then,'' he said. ``Death doesn't affect people until they develop a conscience.''
He added, ``I didn't have a conscience when I was young. A conscience comes when you begin to define your moral values.''
He served 22 years in the Army, and his struggle to become a staff sergeant specializing in logistics management was demanding. He's reading Gen. Colin Powell's ``My American Life'' to get Powell's take on discrimination in the service.
``I don't see how he can say there was no problem in the military,'' said Gillis, who didn't support a Powell presidency. ``We've still fought discrimination through promotions and job assignments.''
After his military career, Gillis earned his bachelor's degree from Norfolk State University and enrolled in Virginia Union Divinity School - not to become a minister, but to learn about church administration.
He didn't finish graduate school, but his studies helped him get a job as a rehabilitation counselor at Southampton Correctional Facility. He's been there five years, specializing in substance abuse.
He enjoys talking to the inmates. Some would say he preaches, and that makes them wonder why he doesn't pursue a ministerial vocation.
``Whatever God has me do, He'll have me do,'' Gillis said with a laugh.
Many people would not characterize Gillis as spiritual. Some say he is brash and confrontational.
His public bouts with Councilman Richard R. Harris are barbershop talk in Suffolk. Earlier this year, Gillis and the NAACP Suffolk board rejected membership applications from Harris and City Attorney C. Edward Roettger. The national office approved Harris' membership, but Gillis vows a fight.
``Paul is more confrontational than most people I know, and I think he's comfortable with that,'' said Harris.
He insists that the friction centers on Gillis' resentment that Harris defeated Mary V. Richardson, who is black, for the council seat. Gillis wanted a black in the position.
``I don't have a problem with Richard Harris having a membership if the purpose is to help the organization,'' Gillis said, ``But if you're about coming into the inner workings of the NAACP and trying to create a measure of distrust, then, no, you don't belong.''
Gillis doesn't apologize for being confrontational. His longtime friend, T.C. Williams of Suffolk, doesn't think he should. Williams - a civic leader whose dapper, disarming style is the antithesis of Gillis' - recounted a time when Gillis blasted former Del. J. Samuel Glascock at a council session for his stand on redistricting. That didn't sit well with an elderly black woman in the audience, Williams recalled.
`` `I remember Sam when he was a little boy,' '' Williams recalled the woman saying. `` `We ain't never had any trouble here in Suffolk. We don't need someone here stirring things up, because we've been getting along.' ''
Gillis' leadership style has distanced him from some. Anyone who has confronted Gillis' wrath is unlikely to forget it.
Late last year, he staged a demonstration in front of City Hall when racial allegations surfaced between black inspections official Vanessa Savage and white City Attorney Roettger. He recently threatened a lawsuit over the matter, as he has done in several other instances.
But Williams said Suffolk needs Gillis: ``Paul Gillis doesn't want to get along. I don't want him to get along.''
There's a need for confrontation in a city that has fallen asleep, Gillis maintained.
Gillis said the chief problems for blacks in Suffolk are lack of water and sewage, poor housing conditions and lack of jobs. ``We have got to bring the level of economic empowerment up.''
Others close to him say the abrasiveness is just the outer self.
Della Zenobia Gillis said she wasn't immediately attracted to her husband, but his honesty ultimately won her over. They have two daughters: Rolanda, 25; and Ramona, 27.
``I think a lot of people misread his personality because of his directness,'' she said. ``But his word is his bond. When you get past the personality conflict, you realize he's genuine.''
The brash, forceful Gillis is just what the NAACP needs, said Salim Khalfani, State Conference branch and field coordinator. Blacks are facing difficult times with the scaling back of affirmative action, a hostile Congress and the Supreme Court's turning the clock on race relations, Khalfani said.
Many members have lost faith in the 87-year-old NAACP.
Some African-American youths have abandoned the organization, contending it's outdated and primarily serves the interests of conservative, older, middle-class blacks. In the wake of the Million Man March, they have turned to more fiery leaders like the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan NAACP members are hoping the recent election of an outspoken new national president, Kweisi Mfumecq, will bring renewed energy and interest to the organization.
Membership in southwest and western Virginia branches haslagged, and fundraising is needed, said Khalfani.
Gillis is working to energize youths and raise money. The Conference also plans to lobby against a number of initiatives raised by Gov. George F. Allen's administration. On Monday, several NAACP staffers, including Gillis and State Conference Executive Director Lynda Byrd-Harden, lobbied legislators about these issues at the statehouse.
Khalfani said Gillis' style will get the job done.
Gillis is more to the point: ``My leadership style is simply this: I believe you need to be able to tell the person to go to hell and make him want to buy the bus ticket.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Micahel Kestner\The Virginian-Pilot
[Paul C. Gillis]
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB