![\"Rosemary](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/sut-l-someone-pope-01-rotated-1.jpg\")
Rosemary Pope, with the two palms outside George Stevens Senior Center. (Jan Goldsmith)<\/p>\nRosemary Pope, a longtime community leader in southeastern San Diego, was born in 1945 and raised in Macon, Ga., when public facilities were separated by race under Jim Crow laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were many \u2018Whites Only\u2019 signs,\u201d she recalled. \u201cWe used separate water fountains and sat in the back of buses. My schools were segregated, first grade to high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father was active in the civil rights movement. I was about 7 or 8 when I saw a cross burning on our lawn, which was scary. We stayed to ourselves, our Black neighborhood. We didn\u2019t go to restaurants. We had church potlucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pope was the youngest of five children. Her father was a laborer working multiple jobs. Her mother took in laundry while caring for the children.<\/p>\n
Rosemary Pope, with the two palms outside George Stevens Senior Center. (Jan Goldsmith)<\/p>\n
Her parents protected the kids and instilled values aimed at preparing them to succeed, despite Jim Crow Georgia.<\/p>\n
She recalled her parents telling them: \u201cYou overcome it by what\u2019s up here. They can\u2019t take that from you. That\u2019s why you get education. Less than your best is failure.\u201d<\/p>\n
They imparted in the children a resilience and wisdom they called \u201cmother wit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMother wit, education and religion are what sustained me and how I dealt with Jim Crow,\u201d Pope said. \u201cI was an excellent student and learned, as the Bible says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1964 at age 19, she left Georgia and followed her sister to San Diego, where she attended City College and earned an associate\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n
By 1974, she was a divorced parent raising two young children. She returned to college at San Diego State while working several jobs to support the family. In 1976, she earned a bachelor\u2019s in sociology and became a social worker at Neighborhood House and later other organizations. Her focus was on guiding seniors and low-income families. She also taught several community college courses, which she continued for 37 years.<\/p>\n
In 1989, she began working part time for Dr. Charlie Johnson, helping guide his senior patients on non-medical issues. Johnson provided office space for the service, but they outgrew it as the number of patients needing help increased. In 1995, it was relocated to the Jackie Robinson YMCA and named Fourth District Seniors Resource Center.<\/p>\n
Three years later, Pope became the center\u2019s director and had a vision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted a place where seniors could come and get food, services, nutrition programs and information, but also with music, dancing, colors, lighting and decorations,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cI wanted to dispel myths about seniors. It wouldn\u2019t smell like Bengay.\u201d<\/p>\n
And she wanted to construct a separate senior center building where programs and services would be in one place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked with [then San Diego Councilman] Rev. George Stevens and he said, \u2018Sister Pope, we don\u2019t have money for constructing a new building,\u2019\u201d she recalled. \u201c\u2019But we do have faith\u2019 and he began popping like a bean. He helped us get the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The George Stevens Senior Center on South 65th\u00a0Street was completed in early 2006.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were told we could move in, but there was no money to run it. No salaries. Nothing,\u201d Pope said.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve been here over 19 years and the people who said I wouldn\u2019t last three months? They\u2019re gone. But I\u2019m still here!<\/p>\n
\u201cWe realized a dream. We did it through donations, grants \u2026 and mother wit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today the center is a prominent hub of activities bringing much-needed services and programs to a community often left out.<\/p>\n
Pope, now 80, is in her 27th year as the center\u2019s director and still holds dear the values her parents instilled.<\/p>\n
Those values were passed down to Pope\u2019s children, Charos and Charles, and her grandchildren, Joseph and Zion Isiah, all of whom graduated college and achieved success. Her late son, Charles Lewis III , was a San Diego city councilman.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the center\u2019s construction, Pope had two palm trees planted in front to make a statement. \u201cThey bend in the wind but won\u2019t break,\u201d she said. \u201cResilience. That\u2019s what the palm trees signify.\u201d<\/p>\n
About this series<\/p>\n
Goldsmith is a Union-Tribune contributing columnist.<\/p>\n
We welcome reader suggestions of people who have done something extraordinary or otherwise educational, inspiring or interesting and who have not received much previous media. Please send suggestions to Jan Goldsmith at\u00a0jgsandiego@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rosemary Pope, a longtime community leader in southeastern San Diego, was born in 1945 and raised in Macon,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,728,50,3546,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-32737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-people","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-sandiego","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114784010373369418","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}