A Tribute to W. Retta Gilliam

It is no secret that the East of the River Community Development Corporation was in serious trouble when Retta Gilliam accepted the post of President/Executive Director. From the date of her appointment until her tragic death April 11, 2005, she led the organization from potential ashes to a solvent, vibrant, and proactive organization poised to maintain a leadership role in the Ward 8 community and the community and economic development community-at-large. The 04-16-2005 Washington Post editorial provided an apt capsule of Ms. Gilliam's journey here.

W. Retta Gilliam

PILLARS OF THE community are not always found among the politically powerful or economically well-off. Sometimes a city's most formidable structure is the tireless person who stands virtually alone as a community's main support. W. Retta Gilliam, who died on Monday at age 43 after being struck by a car as she crossed Suitland Road in Southeast Washington, was just such a pillar.

Her title - president and chief executive of the East of the River Community Development Corp.- hardly captures the impact or range of Ms. Gilliam's work in communities where the social fabric is strained and where physical conditions seem most difficult to tackle. Such communities happen to have been where Retta Gilliam could be found, replacing abandoned apartments and erecting office buildings, condominiums and other housing in Ward 8.

Warned against making a revitalized neighborhood a new home for drug dealers, Ms. Gilliam thwarted the drug market by putting her development corporation and a Children's National Medical Center clinic in a space that dealers would have occupied. Because of her work, Camp Simms National Guard site may become home to a Giant Food supermarket and retail shops. Because of Ms. Gilliam, a pediatric clinic is housed on Martin Luther King Jr, Avenue where one never stood before.

The remarkable thing about Retta Gilliam was what drew her to Washington. She found that the need to rebuild and renovate blighted neighborhoods outweighed the lucrative Wall Street position she abandoned for a job with the Peace Corps in Kenya. Then she took the chance to spend the last seven years in Washington's most troubled communities. Speaking last fall about the financing for the new waterfront baseball stadium, Ms. Gilliam put in a word on behalf of the neighborhoods she served: "Folks need something they can see and touch ...something to ensure that at the end of the day, the residents are at least able to participate in this quote-unquote renaissance of the city." W. Retta Gilliam, during her life in Washington, did more than her part to make that happen.