Ann and Bill Ewing

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Ann and Bill Ewing

Asked to look back at their efforts in Mt. Airy, Anne Ewing laughs and says, “We have been around for a long time and chaired lots of committees.” Anne recalls the earliest EMAN meetings as being exciting times. “People would stick around after the meeting and keep talking. And then we would go home and take an hour to unwind.”

The Ewings have been involved in practically every community organization in Mt. Airy. A central focus of many of their efforts, however, has been on making officials more responsive to the community.

Of all their work, the Ewings mention community organizing first. Bill recalls, “We got a grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration to hire organizers for each block. We had over a hundred blocks organized. We had statistics to show that the crime rate dropped as a result. We also got the city to give us paint, brushes, and rollers to paint houses. Each block could decide how to paint the houses on the street.” Anne adds, “It was amazingly competitive.”

The Ewings did what they call policy work as well. Bill testified at a number of city and state hearings about red lining, the unwillingness of banks to approve loans in certain neighborhoods like Mt. Airy. “They graded neighborhoods by the race or ethnicity of the residents. Integrated neighborhoods were terrible by their evaluation.” Bill also testified about police-community relations. He recalls, “That was the day when the police department and community were at loggerheads. We demonstrated and testified against police misconduct.”

“We also did a lot of public education work,” Anne remembers. “We were looking for more of a community voice in the schools in, for example choosing principals.” The Ewings also were involved in a number of efforts to upgrade Germantown Avenue. “We spent years trying to get city agencies to improve services to Mt. Airy and to help the Germantown Avenue business district”.

The community spirit they have helped sustain is what brought the Ewings to Mt. Airy. Bill says “One of the reasons we moved here was that we wanted to live in a place that felt like a neighborhood. A neighbor invited us to come to the first Anneual meeting of EMAN after we moved here. The person who was executive secretary was somebody I had known in high school. The next thing I knew I was chair of the police-community relations committee.” From their activity they have received, Anne says, “a sense of belonging, of participation and of comfort in the community.”  “And,” she adds “we have learned how to formulate a meeting so that everyone gets their say and you get to the end of the agenda.” Bill adds, “It doesn’t do any good to set your agenda without finding out what people really want and are willing to do.”