
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 19, 1990                   TAG: 9003222465
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MANASSAS                                 LENGTH: Medium

BLACKS STRIVE FOR IDENTITY IN COUNTY WHERE FEW LIVE

Blacks say life can be isolating in Prince William County, where their numbers are few and Martin Luther King's birthday was observed last year with a cross-burning.

Blacks have been attracted to Prince William County for the same reason as whites - housing is cheaper away from Washington, D.C., and residents want to take advantage of the area's healthy economy or get away from crime and drugs in the city.

But blacks account for only about 12 percent of the county's population compared with 20 percent statewide. Black parents worry about the lack of role models at school and elsewhere for their children.

"I worried about them losing their identity," said Delores Hampton, who has lived in Prince William for 20 years. She is concerned that there are no blacks among Prince William's seven supervisors and relatively few black teachers in its 55 public schools. Blacks make up 13 percent of the student enrollment, but "can go through this school system and never have a black teacher," Hampton said.

"If black children see black adults in positions of authority, it sends a message that they can achieve," said Faye Patterson, one of two blacks recently tapped for associate school superintendent positions. "Conversely, if blacks are not in those positions, that also sends a message."

Sometimes seeing a fellow black face at all is a welcome experience.

"After I first moved here, I can recall calling my parents to tell them I saw some black people in a restaurant," said Anita Jackson, a special education teacher at Potomac High School.

"We went to a McDonald's and I told Craig, `There are no blacks in this place,"' said Vinette Elam, who moved to Prince William from the Tidewater area with her husband, Craig, in September 1985.

"I had never been to a McDonald's where there were no blacks," her husband said. Vinette ELam said that everywhere the couple went in the county, they were the only blacks. "I thought, `What am I getting myself into?

Curtis Porter, president of the county National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said a black power base is slowly beginning to grow.

by CNB