Features: Takoma Archives

Diana Kohn is Takoma Park's unofficial historian. Diana is also a longtime environmental activist who works at the Institute for Environmental Energy Research.

The man behind Lee Jordan Field

To understand why the name of Lee Jordan still elicits reverence in Takoma Park nearly 20 years after his death, start with the day in 1937 when Jordan, then a 27-year-old janitor at the old Blair High school, was called in to fix a broken window in the gymnasium. Upon learning it was teenage boys who had broken in because they wanted to play basketball, he promptly asked for their names. Never mind that they were white and he was African-American. He recognized that they needed an outlet and he took it upon himself to make sure they got one.

Photo: Courtesy Jordan Family Jordan was a famly man as well as coach to all area kids. This family portrait includes his wife Ruth and their three daughters, from left, Patricia, Eudora and Delores.

Every Saturday afternoon from then on, he’d show up at Blair on his own time to open the gym for any white students ready to play. And before long he got permission to leave it open in the evening for “colored” basketball games, never mind that these boys were not legally entitled to attend Blair.

That gesture set a pattern for decades to come, cutting across the color line.
In the 1930s most communities in America were made up of pockets of “colored” and white communities, existing side by side but seldom mixing. Jordan’s idea was a simple one – give kids something to do so they stayed out of trouble. But the larger impact was the opportunity for kids of all races to get to know each other. As the years moved toward the civil rights upheaval of the 1950s and 1960s, he provided an invaluable experience.

Sports is what he knew best. As a child growing up in the Ritchie Avenue neighborhood of Takoma Park, he learned the skills that earned him a place in the Negro Baseball League. As a catcher for the Homestead Grays, his teammates included future Hall-of-Famers Satchel Paige and catcher Josh Gibson. By 1937 he was through with the big leagues and back in Takoma Park where, as Blair custodian, he embarked on a much greater role as coach extraordinaire.

When summer arrived, he gathered his boys, both black and white, and formed the first integrated baseball team in the county. Working with Warren Magner, a similarly-dedicated white coach from Prince George’s, he helped lead to an informal league that lasted for years.

In addition to coaching, he served as deacon at Parker Memorial Baptist Church. He and wife Ruth raised five children and later, after the tragic death of his eldest son, raised their five grandchildren.

On an almost daily basis he tirelessly rounded up kids to get to the field or gym and back home again. Moreover, in an age before foundation grants, he found creative ways to convince banks to loan money to buy equipment, or he took it out of his own pocket. The kids called him Mr. Lee, a name that reflected their friendly rapport but also emphasized his dignity.

In 1950, four years before Brown v. Board of Education pushed America into the civil rights era, he helped organize the only racially integrated Boys Club in Montgomery County, fielding basketball, football and baseball teams. Within a few years he added girls to the Club. As late as 1970, opposing coaches protested a girl in the lineup of his county baseball team. He successfully argued with county officials to keep her, and she responded by hitting a home run in the first game.

Perhaps more than any one person Lee Jordan prepared Takoma Park for the day when the Montgomery County Board of Education ordered the closing of the Takoma Park Colored School, and sent all 45 students to local white schools. Black students uneventfully entered their new classrooms and were greeted by white classmates who already knew them from years together on the athletic fields. Mr. Lee’s coaching proved to be the bridge.

Photo: Joe Heilbergerger, Courtesy of Historic Takoma, Inc. Above, a 1979 portrait of Lee Jordan, at the field surrounded by kids. Below, the photo from the Montgomery Sentinel at the 1981 dedication of Lee Jordan Field, at what is now Takoma Park Middle School.

Jordan’s dedication to the kids earned him a respect that few adults ever earned. Under his quiet but intense tutelage, a list of boys went on to play at the pro level for the Senators, the Astros, the Orioles, the 49ers and the Green Bay Packers. In addition he made a policy of never cutting players. There was one particular first grader who had an extremely difficult time putting a basketball in the hoop. Mr. Lee refused to cut him, and instead worked to correct the problem. Today, that first grader is Steve Francis playing for the Orlando Magic, earning the maximum salary. Another kid who absorbed the Jordan philosophy is famed DeMatha basketball coach Morgan Wooten.

Jordan also served as mentor to countless other kids, black and white, who never went on to become stars. For many he was their lifeline back from the brink of petty crime. Police often enlisted his assistance, and many were spared punishment so long as they joined one of Mr. Lee’s teams. His stature was recognized by businessmen and politicians alike and a string of mayors called him the second mayor of Takoma Park. The culmination of community pride came with the 1981 dedication of the field next to Takoma Park Middle School (where he finished out his custodial career) as Lee Jordan field.

Finally after nearly half a century, Jordan was forced to give up coaching in the mid-1980s due to diabetes. He died in 1988.

This month, in honor of his efforts for all the children of Takoma Park, Historic Takoma and the City of Takoma Park nominated Lee Jordan to the Montgomery County Civil Rights Hall of Fame.