[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 165 (Friday, November 19, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2496]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       A TRIBUTE TO ONE OF FT. GREENE'S JEWELS, GEORGIANNA TURNER

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                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 18, 1999

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, as we close out the last Congressional 
session of the 20th century, I want to recognize the century of 
achievements by one of Brooklyn's finest residents, Georgianna Turner.
  A native of St. Anne Parish in Jamaica, she was just a young girl of 
18, when she immigrated to the United States with her older sister, 
Lee, and young niece, Vera around 1915. While she has lived in the U.S. 
for 84 years, she has been a resident of Brooklyn's Fort Greene 
neighborhood for 41 years. During these four decades, Mrs. Turner has 
been an active participant in the life of her community.
  While the Ft. Greene community was recently described by New York 
Magazine as undergoing ``a new residential renaissance'', the 
neighborhood was a different place in the `50's and `60's when 
Georgianna Turner first moved to South Oxford Street. Many of the 
brownstones had been converted to rooming houses and flop houses making 
everyday life quite a challenge. Mrs. Turner and a committed band of 
neighbors resolved to reclaim the block and worked tirelessly for 
decades to establish the Ft. Greene neighborhood, and especially South 
Oxford Street, as one of the premiere blocks in Brooklyn. Working with 
Mr. Percy Buchannan who was, then, the head of the South Oxford Street 
Block Association, along with other long term residents like Nancy 
Johnson, Hazel Slaughter, and William Turner (no relation). Georgianna 
Turner went from block to block galvanizing community support, exposing 
drug activity, and vociferously advocating for the changes that would 
make the neighborhood a better place to live.
  Mrs. Turner remembers the years when she had to endure repeated 
vandalism to her home in response to her activism. She risked her life 
on the line by reporting drug activity. Ever fearless, Georgianna 
Turner and her cohorts in the South Oxford Street Block Association 
were not to be stopped. They worked hand-in-hand with local 
politicians, the police department, the sanitation department, the 
Board of Health, local churches--especially Queen of All Saints (where 
she has been a faithful member of 40 years), Lafayette Presbyterian 
Church--and whoever else would help them clean up the blocks from South 
Elliott to Clinton Avenue. She especially recalls their concerted 
effort to ``get rid of the Atlantic Avenue meat market that was the 
scourge of the neighborhood, get the bums off the street, and get the 
trash cleaned up''.
  Before real estate speculators and the Brooklyn Academy of Music was 
envisioned, the quiet, determined approach of residents like Georgianna 
Turner paved the way for the real-estate and economic boom that Ft. 
Greene is experiencing today. Though she never sought fame or fortune 
for her community activism, Georgianna Turner has received countless 
accolades for her valiant efforts. Her legacy has been to create a 
clean, safe, stable community of which she and her colleagues in the 
South Oxford Street Block Association can be proud.
  On August 18, 1999, Georgianna Turner celebrated her 100th birthday. 
I want to salute this ``grand old lady'' as we end the last session of 
Congress in the 20th century. She leaves Brooklyn with a legacy that 
will endure long into the next century. I urge my colleagues to join me 
in acknowledging the splendid work of one of Ft. Greene's finest 
jewels, Georgianna Turner.

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