Keeping the memory of ‘Mr. Lee’ alive

Testimonials reflect influence of Human Rights Hall of Fame inductee

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Laurie DeWitt⁄The Gazette Kia Matthews and her 2-year-old daughter, Courtney, the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Montgomery County Human Rights Hall of Fame inductee Lee Jordan, attend a celebration held Saturday to honor the man who helped integrate the school system and bring children of different races together.

For nearly 50 years, Lee Jordan coached baseball, football and basketball in Takoma Park, using those sports teams as vehicles to keep youths out of trouble.

On Saturday at the Takoma Park Community Center, family and friends celebrated Jordan’s March 19 induction into the Montgomery County Human Rights Hall of Fame with a reception, a video about Jordan and testimonials about his impact on the community.

‘‘I was thrilled to see that they finally recognized him,” said Jordan’s daughter, Patricia Matthews.

Although Jordan, known affectionately as ‘‘Mr. Lee” to the children he coached, died almost 20 years ago, his legacy has continued to thrive with the programs he helped to create, the people he influenced and the field named after him behind Takoma Park Middle School.

Diana Kohn, education chair of Historic Takoma, nominated Jordan for the Human Rights Hall of Fame, created in 2001, when she learned about its existence last year. ‘‘He’s an obvious person” for the hall, she said. ‘‘He proved what one person can do. Individuals make things happen.”

Jordan formed his first team in the summer of 1937, an integrated baseball team, which was the first integrated team in Montgomery County, according to Kohn. In the 1950s, he created the city’s Boys and Girls Club, again the only integrated one in the county, according to Kohn.

‘‘As far as my father was concerned, there was no color,” Matthews said.

Jordan’s focus was on helping all the youth. He gave ‘‘the kids an outlet,” said Jordan’s grandson Paul Powell. ‘‘If you were a kid in Takoma Park, he knew you, he knew your parents. He kept us all out of trouble.”

Tubby Jackson was one of those Jordan had helped. Jackson met Jordan when he was 10 years old and played baseball and basketball on Jordan’s teams.

‘‘He made a big difference in my success in life,” Jackson said. Because of Jordan, ‘‘I never wanted to get in trouble. I wanted to make him proud of me.”

Jordan was respected by all, and he led by example. Never one to raise his voice to discipline his players, he preferred to take problem players and talk to them quietly about any issues they might have had.

The Takoma Park Police Department often called upon Jordan to help with troubled youth. Instead of putting area troublemakers in juvenile detention, the police would send them to Jordan, who would put them on one of his sports teams. There, he demanded that they keep up their grades and help out in the community.

In addition to his ability to lead, Jordan was also a generous man who often paid for poorer children to join his teams, paying for their dues and equipment. He sought donations from his church, where he served as deacon, and from local businesses. He received donations of equipment and money, which all went to the Boys and Girls Club for the children of the community.

He continued to coach until the mid-1980s, when diabetes forced him to stop doing what he had been doing for almost 50 years.

‘‘People come up to me all the time and tell me how they wish my grandfather was still around,” said granddaughter Joy Jordan.

Although anyone who had contact with Jordan continues to remember him today, it would probably be difficult to find a youth who plays on Lee Jordan Field at Takoma Park Middle School who could identify who Jordan was and what he did.

‘‘Nobody in the middle school knows who Lee Jordan was,” Kohn said.

Family members and Historic Takoma hope to put a plaque at the field that will briefly describe what Jordan did and why the field is named for him. In addition, Councilman Terry Seamens (Ward 4) is creating a documentary based on interviews with Jordan’s family and friends.

‘‘The work he did deserves to be documented,” Seamens said. He hopes to show this in schools in the Takoma Park area, so that the current generation can learn about the man who shaped their community.

‘‘He lives on in all of us, whether we know it or not,” Seamens said.