Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 11, 1990 TAG: 9006110130
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A5 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
Four members of the Concerned Citizens for Political Education voted unanimously to remove Evelyn T. Butts as chairwoman of the group. The vote retired a woman who for years commanded the city's most powerful political machine. Butts gave many black leaders their political starts and registered thousands of Norfolk blacks to vote.
"She has been the mother of us all," said James Rivers, one of the four. "She has taught many of us the ins and outs of politics. But like everything else, things have to come to an end."
Butts, 66, has seen victory and disappointment during her political career. Represented by Joseph A. Jordan Jr., she argued that the state's $1.50 poll tax was discriminatory against the poor, especially blacks.
Joined by four other blacks from Fairfax County, she won the suit in March 1966 after a 2 1/2 year fight. In the following years, Butts emerged as a power in the Concerned Citizens.
Winning the endorsement of Concerned Citizens meant winning the black vote, and Butts was courted by both black and white candidates who needed that support.
In 1975, Butts was appointed as commissioner of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
But she failed in two attempts to win election to the City Council.
Despite those losses, she remained among the most powerful political forces in the city in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Another run for council, when she refused a joint campaign with another black candidate, the Rev. John H. Foster, "was really the beginning of the end," said Del. William P. Robinson Jr., the General Assembly's first black member.
The election led to a feud with the Rainbow Coalition, which endorsed Foster.
Butts said she was unfazed by the action.
"It doesn't bother me at all," she said. "But I'm retiring. You can say that. I'm retiring from politics."
by CNB