THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 11, 1996 TAG: 9610110541
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 74 lines
Frank H. Stubbs III has packed a lot of success into his 38 years.
Graduate degrees from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the University of Richmond's T.C. Williams School of Law . . . the Bronze Star for meritorious action in Grenada . . . three other Army and Air Force medals . . . pharmaceutical sales . . . health-care administration .
Ditto Stubbs' vision of helping Hampton Roads minorities. Compression is called for to fit his 10-year plan into a time frame:
HIV/AIDS outreach broadened to include all South Hampton Roads cities . . . after-school programs for public housing neighborhoods . . . stepped-up job counseling and training . . . tutoring and mentoring projects . . . scholarships . . . satellite offices for all the cities . . . health services for the whole person . . .
A Chesapeake resident, Stubbs took the helm of the Urban League of Hampton Roads on Aug. 19, filling the spot held by Mary Redd Nelson for 13 years. She resigned in May, saying she was ready to move on to other things.
Stubbs' lawyerly guard comes down and he becomes animated when he talks about the children who live in the low-income neighborhoods of area cities.
``I try to tell them, `Just because you're here today doesn't mean you can't be an astronaut or fly the space shuttle.' But it's important for kids to realize that most of those heroes - for example, Michael Jordan - that's not achievable. Doctors, lawyers, CPAs, teachers - now, that's achievable.''
More than almost anything, at-risk youth need positive role models and mentors, said Stubbs, who is working to form a volunteer corps made up of diverse professionals who, like himself, ``want to help.''
For many at-risk youngsters, ``self-esteem is at a critical point, and I want to preserve that, make them feel important. And it's not like it's their problem alone, because I'm part of this community.
``The answer is not money. Rather, it's to show people that they're capable of improving their status. Our goal is to get that started - to be a catalyst for change.''
Stubbs believes the league's calling is a noble one that harks back to the group's beginnings in 1910. Creating economic opportunity for the vast numbers of African Americans migrating from the South to the North, the league filled a void, Stubbs said, because social services didn't exist.
Now, ``welfare reform offers new challenges,'' Stubbs said. ``We must marshal our resources and find new ones to help, fill the increasing demand for organizations like the Urban League to be out in the community. City and state social services are strapped. The Urban League is there to fill any void.''
Today, with 114 affiliates in major cities, the New York City-based organization is one of the most widely respected and powerful in the nation, Stubbs says. Since its inception, the organization has enlarged its focus to include other ethnic minorities; now, demographics dictate which of them will benefit from the league's advocacy.
In Hampton Roads, African Americans are the minority the Urban League is called upon most often to help, whereas leagues in California cities are concerned primarily with Hispanics.
Though Stubbs has helped invigorate the league, he credits his 14 full-time staff members as well.
``I'm part of the vision,'' he says, leaning back in a chair in the league's Church Street office on a recent afternoon. ``It's a team, and I'm one of the players - maybe captain, but not owner.''
Stubbs, who is single, is the son of an Air Force father and a Japanese mother, Frank Stubbs Jr. and Ikuko Stubbs of Hampton.
The younger Stubbs attended public schools in Hampton, but much of his childhood was spent ``flip-flopping'' from place to place. Still, what some might call an unstable existence didn't throw him off the track. He and his siblings were kept busy with sports and were directed from the start to focus on goals, including college, Stubbs said.
He has practiced law privately in Richmond and Norfolk, but now he does pro bono work for AIDS Legal Services of Southeast Virginia.
KEYWORDS: URBAN LEAGUE OF HAMPTON ROADS AIDS by CNB