THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 28, 1996 TAG: 9608280001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
LENGTH: 81 lines
Welcoming yet another soul into the church, the officiating priest asks Episcopalians gathered around the baptismal font: ``Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?'' and ``Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?''
The assembly answers each of these questions (as well as others) with: ``I will, with God's help.''
As a man of the cloth, the Rev. Joseph N. Green Jr., who retired July 1 from Norfolk City Council after nearly two decades as a member, seems ever to have the Baptismal Covenant in mind.
Father Green, as he is known to many more people than those long shepherded by him when he was rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Brambleton, brings the spirit of the covenant - indeed, of his deep faith - to bear in every interaction with others.
Green's wife, Evelyn, his parishioners, his colleagues in politics and government and his many friends in the arts-and-cultural scene and every other walk of life attest to Green's kindness, thoughtfulness and steadfastness in sickness and in health and in joy and in sorrow - and to his capacity for disagreeing without being disagreeable. How many others in politics - or in any neighborhood or organization or group you could name - command such praise?
As citizen, clergyman and member of, first, the School Board and, then, City Council, Green has firmly pressed the causes of civil rights for African Americans and fair play for everyone. He has labored faithfully for the betterment of Norfolk. As a member of regional boards, he has worked for the progress of all of Hampton Roads.
What Green has done for his city and region and how he has gone about doing it have garnered considerable respect, admiration and affection. These responses to Green were eloquently expressed by speaker after speaker at the hail-and-farewell dinner honoring him for his council service last Thursday at the Waterside Marriott.
Mayor Paul D. Fraim told the couple of hundred people present that it is Green's ``nature to do the right thing every time.'' Fraim cited the fruits of Green's stewardship as head of the Church Street-Huntersville Development Committee as some of the most conspicuous of the many right things that the former councilman has done or helped get done for the old seaport city he calls ``great.
By 1984,'' Fraim said, ``the redevelopment of the Church Street-Huntersville area had reached a critical point. Recognizing that to assure that this major project located in a key part of the city moved forward in a timely manner, Joe (Green) moved for the creation of the Church Street-Huntersville Committee. He chaired that group from its inception.''
Fraim cited these ``impressive results'': three new shopping centers along the Church Street corridor, the widening of Church Street to Goff Street, construction of a handsome office building, renovation and expansion of two churches and extensive residential development, including restoration and upgrading in Huntersville.
Fraim also praised Green's commitment to mass transit as the city's representative on the regional TRT board of commissioners, which Green chaired for a time.
On the TRT board, Green consistently lobbied for improved bus service and the as-yet-unrealized Norfolk-Virginia Beach light-rail link for people for whom public transportation is essential. Green also was an initiator of talks leading to the upcoming merger of TRT and Pentran, the Peninsula mass-transit system.
Green was the first African American since Reconstruction to be elected to Norfolk City Council. Fraim praised Green's personal and official devotion to the arts and to civil rights. ``He has always kept before the council the need to maintain our vigilance in (civil rights),'' Fraim said, ``and to be a leader in both hiring practices and purchasing. He was, in fact, the conscience of us all.''
Green has left the council, but he has not abandoned service to others. He will now have more time with his family, including his grandchildren, but the council appointed him to the Chrysler Museum board of trustees, and missionary work in Africa apparently is on his schedule.
Wherever he goes and whatever he does, ex-Councilman and ex-Vice Mayor Green, Father Green, Joe Green can be counted on ``to strive for justice and peace'' and ``to respect the dignity of every human being,'' healing, nurturing, building. Would that everyone could be counted on to do the same. MEMO: Mr. Scott is associate editor of the editorial page of The
Virginian-Pilot. by CNB