THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 6, 1996 TAG: 9604060292
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
In the past week we lost three foot soldiers for freedom. Each will be remembered as an icon of excellence for these times.
One used his talents to build unity abroad, one across the nation and the other in Hampton Roads.
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown died Wednesday in a plane crash along with 34 others on a trade mission to Croatia. Their plane crashed into a mountainside two miles from their Dubrovnik destination, fatefully off course.
But Brown had been on a steady course that began decades ago as he grew up in Harlem, marveling at black leaders who frequented the Thersa Hotel.
From there he went on to become the first black member of his college fraternity. On to become the first black partner in a high-powered Washington firm.
Driven by optimism and dogged confidence in his consensus-building talents, Brown took the helm of the Democratic National Committee in 1991. The rest is history that President Clinton knows well.
There are questions concerning Brown's personal business dealings, but none concerning his contributions to public service.
Business leaders roundly praised his diligence in promoting U.S. exports and other international business initiatives in a global economy considerably neglected by previous administrations.
He looked out for minority-owned enterprises, never forgetting from whence he had come.
``Ron Brown walked, ran and flew through life,'' Clinton said. He was a `life force,' or ashe, as the Yoruba people of Africa call it. A proven consensus builder at home, Brown died abroad on a mission to aid a land ripped apart by ethnic and religious strife.
In the mid-1960s, when my hometown of Cleveland was torn by racial divisions, Carl Burton Stokes came to our rescue. With aplomb, vision and a smile so bright that he glittered when he walked, Stokes triumphed in 1967 by a narrow margin to become the first black mayor of a major American city.
He was 68 when he died Wednesday of throat cancer.
In 1971 Stokes stepped down as mayor amid continued racial division but not without inspiring a generation.
He gave my mother a star to wish upon for her five children, who, like he, were raised in public housing. ``He was just a dream for me,'' said Mike White, the city's current black mayor, who was 14 when Stokes served.
Stokes was the first African American to serve in all three branches of government: legislative as a member of the Ohio House, executive as mayor, and judicial as a municipal judge. In the final years of his career, he was appointed a diplomat as President Clinton's ambassador to the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Before James W. Holley III of Portsmouth and Mayor William E. Ward of Chesapeake, there was Carl B. Stokes.
Flags across Cleveland are flying at half-staff for 30 days. Today Stokes' body lies in state at Cleveland City Hall as an honor guard watches over him.
There was no such fanfare for JoAnn Hairston, a Virginian-Pilot security supervisor who died last week at age 48.
She lived quietly, as one of the good, common folk of this community who labor hard and almost inconspicuously. Oh, but what a presence she was. Clearly, presence was the gift that the divine forces had bestowed upon her.
Self-assured, just like Brown. Charismatic, just like Stokes. And a doer, just like both. In 10 years, Hairston worked her way up from part-time security officer to supervisor.
Every day, she came in uniform which included a dark, wide-brimmed hat like a mounted police officer's. Underneath was her direct gaze, to-the-point manner of speaking and a rather droll sense of humor. She was a lantern in the dark, making me and many others feel protected.
To relax she loved to go fishing, one co-worker recalled. But not for long. She ran a tight ship. Trying ``to pull everyone's potential out.''
In the parking lot and corridors of The Virginian-Pilot building, her stalwart spirit lingers.
Goodbye, and thank you to three who made democracy work and who moved a democracy. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown
Politician Carl Burton Stokes
Security supervior JoAnn Hairston
by CNB