GUIDING HER COMMUNITY TO SAFETY

Twenty minutes before a news conference to which she's invited every major
Charlotte media outlet, Linda Williams tools through her north Charlotte
neighborhood in a white Nissan Sentra, honking in front of some homes,
knocking on the door of others.

"HEY!!!!!" she yells when she spots a woman in gold pumps trudging toward
the bus station. "Miss O'Leary! We're gettin' ready to have a news
conference. Want to come on up? It'll only be about 15 minutes."

The woman looks up, smiles, then mumbles something about having to get to work.

It's one of about 20 such excuses Williams heard Friday morning. Still, by
the time she finished her spin through the neighborhood, she had persuaded
four neighbors to join her in front of the cameras for her latest crusade
- -- getting private police protection for the area.

"You can't give up," she said. "You just have to keep asking."

One of the city's most outspoken neighborhood advocates, Williams has been
living that philosophy since moving to Optimist Park 14 years ago. Her
perseverance and media savvy have helped her community win thousands of
dollars in grants, yet she faces death threats from people in her own
neighborhood.

Williams, a self-made leader who often makes headlines, has clearly
mastered the art of getting the media to tell her story -- and forcing city
officials to pay attention.

On the issue of private security, for example, she encouraged a 9-year-old
girl to tell the City Council how she's too scared to play outside. She
organized a sleepover for public officials. And on Saturday, she asked
children to go door-to-door with their piggy banks to collect money for the
effort.

"It seems like every time Linda wants a story done, the media covers it,"
says councilman James Mitchell, who represents Williams' district. "Some of
my colleagues say she seeks media attention too much, and it makes them
uncomfortable. But she gets attention and it usually works."

`How to get things done'

Williams, 40, wasn't always so assertive. Raised in the shadow of
alcoholism with an absent father, she was painfully shy as a teen-ager,
says her mentor Jeannette Goebel."She really stayed to herself, especially
around people she didn't know," says Goebel.

Williams attended school irregularly, got pregnant at 17 and almost didn't
graduate. But at Goebel's insistence, with the help of a program for
pregnant teens, she got her diploma and married the father of her son,
Johnny Williams.

The couple's first few years were tough, Williams recalled, and they felt
blessed in 1987 when they qualified for a Habitat for Humanity house in
Optimist Park. They've lived in the light blue, three-bedroom ranch ever since.

Williams was elected president of the neighborhood in 1998. A year later,
she successfully got Optimist Park named a "Community of Shalom," a
nationwide initiative to create zones of "shalom," the Hebrew word for
peace. The designation allowed Williams to earn a part-time salary for her
neighborhood work, so she resigned from her job at Habitat for Humanity.

"Once you get started in community work, it's hard to stop," Williams said.
"You learn the ins and outs, who does what, how to get things done."

Refuses to take no for answer

As Williams drives through Optimist Park, she knows the story behind every
front porch.

She describes the families who struggle to keep up their Habitat homes and
the young men who sell drugs over the kitchen table. She counts all seven
of the bullet holes in the house down the block from hers.

But there also are victories: the boarded-up drug houses, the convenience
store that no longer sells alcohol after Williams and neighbors testified
before the ABC board, and the corner lot where the city demolished a
nightclub that had become an eyesore.

The community also has won thousands of dollars in grants to sponsor
festivals and create programs for neighborhood children. In 2001 alone,
Optimist Park was awarded $41,176.

It's all part of Williams' quest to make Optimist Park a safe and drug-free
place, though it's a quest tinged with danger.

Several death threats have been directed at Williams, and a few of her
neighbors refuse to speak to her. At the mere mention of her name last
week, a group of men hanging out on a street corner began yelling and cursing.

"She's just messin' up our neighborhood," one man bellowed. "She's putting
everyone in jail, taking away from this community. She doesn't know what we
need."

Williams says such comments demonstrate she is succeeding.

Earlier this month, however, she had one of her first setbacks when a city
panel denied her request for a $25,000 matching grant to hire private
police for three months. Panel members worried paying for private security
would duplicate services, set a bad precedent and may not reduce crime in
the long term.

Williams -- not one to take "no" for an answer -- is now trying to raise
$5,000 privately to pay for at least one month of the security.

At Friday's news conference -- held on the street after the church that had
promised space backed out -- she displayed a giant $1,000 check from one
donor and announced the community had already raised $1,600.

"This is the only way we can ensure a safe summer," Williams said. "We've
seen the possibilities and we're not willing to give up."

She says she knows the city would prefer her to stay quiet and work more
behind the scenes, but it's not in her nature.

"Being an African American woman, I have to use what works," Williams said.
"Being nice just doesn't work. You have to make things public."