Trustbuilding by Rob Corcoran

Author:Rob Corcoran [Corcoran, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, American, African American & Black Studies
ISBN: 9780813928814
Google: hyXgPjYg1ZwC
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2010-03-04T05:34:59+00:00

11

If Every Child Were My Child

Race, Economics,

and Jurisdiction

Every Monday morning, Don Cowles drives the five miles from his home in Richmond’s exclusive Windsor Farms to Woodville Elementary School. One hundred percent of the students are African Americans, and more than 90 percent come from low-income families.1 Don works as a volunteer teacher’s assistant and tutor. “Mentoring happens, but the fundamental thing is building relationships of equality across race and class,” he says.

Cowles grew up as an “army brat,” constantly on the move. He attended five high schools before going to Princeton. He says he saw this simply as “my family making a gift in support of public service.” His father completed active duty with the U.S. Army in 1975 as deputy chief of stafffor operations and plans, following service in World War II, in West Germany during the Berlin crisis, and in Vietnam, from which he helped to direct the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Don met his wife, Jane, as a fellow congressional intern in Washington during their freshman year in college. They started married life with Don in law school, then moved to Manhattan, he with a law firm and Jane as a hospital administrator. Nine years later, seeking a different environment in which to raise a family, they got in their car and drove south. It was a choice between Charlotte and Richmond, and when a job opportunity came up for Don in Richmond, they took it. Jane chose to devote herself to the young family and to numerous school and community activities. They raised two daughters; their son, born prematurely, survived just a few days.

In 2001, after a successful business career during which he became a senior vice president with Reynolds Metals Company, Cowles felt a compelling urge to refocus his life. This personal turning point coincided with the acquisition of the company by Alcoa and a restructuring that offered the possibility of financial independence. “Assume everything you have done is preparing you for the next step,” was his guiding thought. In typically thorough fashion, Cowles shared his reflections in a six-page letter to his family. Looking back over fifty years, he saw that all his life—as an itinerant youth, lawyer, and businessman—he had been working to reconcile competing interests. Because of his transient childhood, and “having experienced both rejection and hospitality,” Cowles says he “felt called to do something about building community.” Early in 2002, he called me at the Hope in the Cities office. Over lunch a few days later, he asked me to accompany him in discerning, as he put it, “what I should do with the rest of my life.” Within a few months, he had joined the Hope in the Cities board as Audrey Burton’s cochair.

Cowles was already deeply committed to building new relationships across race and class through a promising new venture at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Situated next to the Virginia State Capitol, St. Paul’s blends conservative Richmond tradition with highly visible activism. In 1998, the vestry appointed a task force

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