"NEWPORT NEWS-When Judge Verbena M. Askew started up the Newport News Drug Court five years ago, she vowed there would be no clapping, no crying in her courtroom--none of the gush and tissues that often accompany the unconventional program for addicts. But on Friday, there was all that and more.

It was the judge's last day in drug court, her employment terminated three days earlier by legislators in Richmond who decided that Askew, the first black woman on the state's Circuit Court, did not deserve a second, eight-year term. And the tears were flowing.

"There's only two people in my life I see as role models--my mom, and there's you," said a middle-aged woman who stood before a straight-faced Askew and sobbed, twisting a tissue in her hands as she thanked the judge for repeatedly jailing her and helping her kick a crack habit. "I love you."

Askew's fall, very public and very ugly, came after a seven-hour committee hearing that dealt mostly with her private life. Citing a sexual harassment complaint against her by another woman, a drug court employee, and Askew's failure to disclose a $64,000 settlement paid in the case, Republican legislators concluded that she wasn't fit to pass judgment on others.

On Friday, she tried to keep the mourning drug offenders focused on their futures instead of her fate, posing her usual questions--warmly but directly.

"Are you taking care of your social life, or are you spending all your time working and just coming home?" she asked one man.

"How are your eating habits-are you getting enough carbs?" she asked another.

Speaking at the end of the session, Natalie Ward, another drug court employee, sought to reassure Askew that the program would continue. "I want to assure you that we will carry on," she said. "And no one can take that away from you."

But for the black community in Newport News, the legislators' vote took away Askew and a great deal more. In a few short weeks, some say, it has taken the city back in time, breaking open racial and political chasms they hoped had closed long ago.

At a rally for Askew on Friday night, Effie Ashe looked out from the pulpit at Trinity Baptist Church and what she saw, she said, made her tremble.

There were the commonwealth's attorney, the vice mayor, the area's congressman, the mayor of neighboring Hampton. Like Ashe, a former chairwoman of the Newport News School Board, they are highly educated, affluent blacks, now the elite of a region that was completely segregated 30 years ago.

But to Ashe and many others in the crowd of about 120 people, Askew's ouster has made those 30 years vanish like a cruel magic trick. For two hours, the leaders of Virginia's fourth-largest city spoke of slaves and masters, sang "We Shall Overcome" and grieved for the equality and acceptance that they said was a mirage.

"We thought we had arrived," Ashe said in a voice quivering with anger, as her listeners rose to their feet, stomping thunderously. "But we were complacent."

On paper, this blue-collar, shipbuilding city on Virginia's southeastern coast seems ahead of the curve on diversity issues. Blacks are more than one-third of the city's 180,000 residents and hold positions of power across the spectrum.

This month, a study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee identified the area known as Tidewater or Hampton Roads--Newport News, Virginia Beach and Norfolk--as the country's most racially integrated metropolitan area. Some credit the powerful presence of the military, at nearby bases and the Northrup Grumman Newport News Shipyard.

When it became apparent last month that Askew's job was in jeopardy, rallies were organized, local leaders met to talk strategy and newspaper readers wrote a torrent of letters to the editor. A bus-and-car caravan went to Richmond on Jan. 17 for the marathon hearing before the House and Senate Courts of Justice committees.

Opinions among Newport News's black residents vary about whether Askew should have been more forthcoming about the legal settlement, and some in her Christian community say they are uncomfortable with rumors that she is a lesbian. But when the vote went against her, Verbena Askew was all theirs, sitting up on that bench looking down at portraits of seven white male predecessors.

Even Askew's most ardent supporters say they have no proof that race was the issue, but they find it hard to believe that it wasn't an issue in the rejection of a dark-skinned, 6-foot-tall woman who likes to lift weights.

"She's big and strong; she is assertive--she does not fit the Hollywood image. She is very smart," said Pastor Preston Jordan Jr., Askew's pastor at Trinity Baptist.

Friends say being dismissed in the spotlight is a particularly harsh punishment for Askew, a private, formal woman who has been in public service since her mid-twenties.

Askew, a Hampton native, left the Tidewater area only for school--Howard University and then the University of Richmond's law school. She worked in government in Newport News and Suffolk before serving as city attorney of Newport News from 1988 until she took the bench in 1995.

It was through the drug court that Askew met Brenda Collins, a Hampton employee who helped run the program. The two women were friends, but in 1999, Collins filed an informal complaint with the city alleging that the judge had propositioned her.

Eva Tashjian-Brown, a Richmond employment law expert hired by the city to investigate, found no merit in the complaint. Collins then filed a formal claim against Hampton for failing to protect her from Askew and a similar complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which the city settled in 2001 for $64,000.

Assistant Hampton City Attorney Cynthia Hudson testified at the Jan. 17 committee hearing that Collins's accusations went beyond Askew and that officials decided settling would be cheaper than a court fight. Askew was not a formal party to the administrative complaints and did not pay any of the settlement.

Many believe that the sexual harassment charge was simply fodder for getting rid of one of the last holdovers from an era when Democrats ruled Newport News.

Askew served as city attorney under a Democratic mayor and a majority-Democrat City Council. When control switched to the Republicans, she butted heads with the new majority as she helped carve Newport News into wards when there were concerns that blacks had trouble getting elected in a citywide system.

Askew's supporters say fences were never mended between the judge and local Republicans, who neither attacked nor supported her as GOP state legislators ended her career.

"It just boiled down to raw political power, and it was disgusting," William R. Harvey, president of Hampton University, said of the vote not to reappoint Askew.

In Trinity Baptist's neighborhood, the poor and predominantly black East End, Askew's exit is seen as proof that little has changed. "No matter your education or status, we are still considered the lowest class," said Minnie Shaw, 60, owner of the Something Unique Beauty Boutique.

The city's black leaders say they plan to fight back: petitioning lawmakers to reconsider, distributing pamphlets to voters statewide and demanding the resignation of Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax), who did not support Askew.

They may or may not get her back on the bench, but they say they can never retrieve the more or less colorblind sense of community they thought they had.

Askew, meanwhile, is looking ahead. Last Friday, after the tears and the hugs, the room fell silent in expectation, and in her calm, authoritative voice, she read a poem from a card of support she had received from a friend.

" `Sometimes the pattern of life doesn't always go as you expected,'" she read, "Accept that there is a path before you, and shake off the `whys.' Walk into your new journey, and you will find it spectacular." " (Michelle Boorstein, The Washington Post, January 29, 2003)