Pubdate: Mon, 20 May 2002
Source: Kansas City Star (MO)
Copyright: 2002 The Kansas City Star
Contact:  http://www.kcstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/221
Author: James Hart

NEIGHBORHOOD ADVOCATE NEARS 76TH BIRTHDAY

June 1996. A Saturday night on the corner of 27th Street and Benton 
Boulevard. A police officer has shot a suspect after what looked like a 
drug deal.

Soon, a crowd of more than 100 gathers; some begin to throw garbage at 
several dozen police carrying batons and shields. Young men turn over a car 
and set it on fire before the crowd disperses.

The city buzzed about that melee for days. There were meetings. Editorials. 
And lots of talk about cleaning up the corner, where drugs were brazenly 
sold in the light of day.

But a big piece of the solution started with Rosemary Lowe -- a retired 
cosmetologist and neighborhood institution who turns 76 on Tuesday.

Lowe -- a "stout Christian, diehard politician," in the words of one friend 
- -- is also a tireless advocate for the Santa Fe neighborhood on Kansas 
City's East Side. She served as its neighborhood association president for 
several years and has fought for more streetlights, better housing and 
stronger ties between community and police.

Associates say Lowe speaks her mind, and she knows elected leaders and city 
programs like a mother knows her children's birthdays. She gets involved in 
the government process and brings home resources to her streets.

Lowe's is but one face in a small army of volunteers steadying Kansas 
City's neighborhoods. She stands out among them, though, not only for her 
outspokenness, but for her durability -- she became active in her 
neighborhood before John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to ask what they 
could do for their country.

"She's an anchor, if you will," for that neighborhood, said Michael Avery, 
chief operating officer for the Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance.

That was particularly evident in June 1996, after the altercation at 27th 
and Benton. Some gang members in the area had heard Lowe speaking at one of 
the meetings after the incident, said Atkins Warren, regional director for 
the Justice Department's community relations service. And the young men 
wanted to talk to her.

For Lowe, that was a bit of a stretch. She had worked hard for her 
neighbors, assisting the poorest and oldest residents. But she did not know 
these young men. She was nervous.

In the end, though, she agreed to the invitation, passed along by federal 
mediators.

"I went down there, and they were so courteous and nice to me," she said of 
the gang members. "They told me their side of how they felt, and I told 
them how I felt. Then we just kind of jelled together."

Lowe arranged meetings between police and the gangs. She asked the Justice 
Department to train the gang members in mediation and communication -- 
skills the young men would use to clean up the corner, to chase away drug 
dealers. And they did, Lowe said.

"These were youngsters," Lowe said of the two dozen young men. "They didn't 
know nothing but come down there and sell drugs and fight and tear up 
everything. I wanted to get their minds in a different channel."

The young men asked Lowe for one other thing.

"What they required of me was to come up there every Thursday, from 1 to 3, 
and watch them cut the weeds and pick up the trash," Lowe said. "And I'd 
get out there, and we'd laugh and talk. So they got to be my good friends."

Lowe has a gift for making friends. She's been a mentor to a string of 
young politicians, including City Councilman Troy Nash, who said Lowe 
introduced him to neighborhood voters.

Landon Rowland, chief executive of Stilwell Financial, sits with Lowe on 
the volunteer board of the Local Investment Commission. Rowland said he 
regularly asks her for political advice.

With a smile, Lowe confesses to loving politics -- figuring out who wins, 
who loses. She was one of the first candidates ever sponsored by Freedom 
Inc. The black political club has given her awards for her voluntarism.

"She is the first one through the door every time we have a meeting," said 
Mark Bryant, Freedom's president.

In her living room hangs a large black-and-white photo -- an artifact from 
Lowe's first campaign. She lost that race for ward committeewoman but won 
the second attempt. She defended the seat for 20 years.

Getting involved in the process is crucial, the Democrat said. As an 
election judge, she's passionate about voting.

"If somebody's out there, and they don't vote, then they're useless," Lowe 
said, a glint in her eye. "And if they need something, well then, why 
haven't I seen you voting lately?"

That's one of the key lessons she learned when she was just starting in 
politics. Its corollary? "If you don't do anything for the people in the 
ward, they will not vote."

Just as with the young men on the corner of 27th and Benton, you have to 
give people a reason to be part of the process, Lowe said. Community 
leaders presented them with certificates and threw a reception for them in 
honor of their work.

Lowe grew up in Arkansas, which, she said, was "like growing up in slavery. 
... Everything was bad." Her grandparents, who often cared for her, owned 
their large farms, where they grew cotton and corn. Moving to bustling 
Kansas City at age 15 was a step into a wider world.

The Santa Fe neighborhood runs from 27th to 31st streets, between Prospect 
and Indiana avenues. Lowe and her family moved there after a U.S. Supreme 
Court ruling knocked down a housing covenant that had kept black people out.

She attends the same church and lives in the same house, though her son and 
her granddaughter live with her now.

Their front hall is full of awards for Lowe, most for her neighborhood 
work. Though Lowe is no longer neighborhood president, she's campaigning 
for better housing for senior citizens.

"I've got a little 96-year-old lady who brought me the prettiest lilies for 
Easter. Her house needed painting, she needed a new roof and she got all of 
that," said Lowe, who located city programs to help her. "She was so happy."

That's her motivation, she said: helping people in need.

"If you don't know how to help people when they need you," Lowe said, "they 
really don't need you."
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MAP posted-by: Beth