Arlington Spotlights: Portia Clark

Portia Clark is a lifelong Arlingtonian and active community member in her home neighborhood of Green Valley. She is the president of the Green Valley Association, the Executive Director of Arm & Arm, a non-profit organization committed to helping returning citizens from incarceration and veterans, and the founder of on C.A.R.E. (Community Association of Resources for Education, Enrichment and Economics), a non-profit focused on creating programs that benefit local youth, parents and seniors.

We got to sit down with Portia Clark to learn more about the history of Green Valley, her experiences growing up in Arlington, her accomplishments and more.

What was it like growing up in Arlington?

Actually, I was born in D.C. because of the times, but I’ve lived in Arlington all my life. I was born right before the sixties, so there had been a lot of changes and the demographics have certainly shifted in the neighborhood. All in all, it’s been good but we went from a community that was at one time 85-90% African American, to around 20% today. We’ve been through gentrification, the sixty’s movement, and all of that but nonetheless I enjoyed growing up there and having all the family around.

Who have been your strongest influences in life?

Of course my mom, always, while she was here. I’ve worked closely with Dr. Alfred Taylor who was the previous president of the Green Valley Civic Association. For a moment I worked with Carmela Hamm at the Black Heritage Museum getting that started when they went from a virtual to a physical space. Carmela has been a big influence on getting me started with doing more of the history and research on what’s going and on what’s gone on within our neighborhood. Also, John Robinson Jr. who actually gave me my first job in the community selling the Green Valley News.

Tell us a bit about Arlington’s Green Valley neighborhood, and your connection to it.

I’ve lived in Green Valley all my life, just moved around to different parts. Growing up there it was nice to have family around, my aunts all lived nearby so my mom and them were always close. We knew all of our neighbors and you considered everybody family, they helped take care of you and helped groom and develop us.

Why do you feel that knowing about this history is important to the local community?

For one, gentrification has occurred. We now call ourselves a historic African American community even though we’re no longer predominantly African American. So, we’re trying to preserve some of that history so others in the future will know about the people that have grown up here and have created that history.

Like a lot of the bridge builders that were in Dr. Taylor’s book, people are not going to be around forever to tell those stories. So, some of the projects we do now are to preserve that history, and make sure there are markers and ways to identify significant buildings and, events that have occurred. It’s important for us that these stories are written down and our kids know about that history.

Like I said, not being born in Arlington at the time it was a tradition because you couldn't be born in Arlington Hospital so you had to go to Freedman's Hospital which is now Howard University. We had businesses that were established to meet our needs back then, and one of those businesses was the Friendly Cab Company. He established his business to help take women to the hospital when they were having babies, and my mom happened to be one of them.

How can visitors engage more with Arlington’s African American history and community?

There’s some history that still needs to be written up and displayed. We built a town square that was named after John Robinson Jr. It was a significant place for so many people who grew up in the area. Even though so many of them have moved away, there’s not a person who grew up during the time that I did that didn’t know who John Robinson Jr. was. He’s one of our icons, and is known as the mayor of Green Valley. He was really active in the 60s and helped organize a lot of youth groups, he helped organized marches with Martin Luther King Jr., we traveled with him. He was there for us.

Pictured | FREED sculpture by Walter Hood at John Robinson Jr. Town Square Photo by Lloyd Wolf

Can you give us some background on C.A.R.E. (Community Association of Resources for Education, Enrichment and Economics)?

Many years ago when I was raising my kids, who are all grown now but still live in the area, there wasn't a lot of programming. So I ended up becoming the person to create a lot of those programs. C.A.R.E. developed out of a need for more programming for youth. One of our first efforts was a program for teenage pregnancy prevention. We met with the kids at Drew Elementary School in the evenings and they enjoyed it. We were mentoring, providing them support in whatever they needed and educating them on how to prevent teenage pregnancy.

Can you share some of your accomplishments?

Recently I got a phone call from AKA of Arlington, I started working with them last year in September and October when we kicked off a 4-H program at Drew Elementary School. They were one of the organizations that signed up to volunteer. So I get this call saying “ We want to nominate you as our person of the year.” I also received a citizen award from the Arlington Community Foundation and received awards through the schools.

It’s not always to me about the awards, I just like helping people. I like to share my knowledge with people, God didn’t just give it to me to keep it. Having this knowledge, things will come. Like working with the food programs, we decided to create a garden for the community, which I’m most proud of. We give the harvest to those in need and often seek out our seniors who may not come out but if they need some greens, we have something for them. I enjoy helping and when I can help somebody solve their problem or need… that’s me. That's what I'm proud to be able to do and to give them what God has given me.

Learn more about Arlington's rich African American History and Heritage here.

Author

Paola Fernandez