"The forty-five year old Mayor of Charlottesville hailing from Brooklyn, New York's East End [sic], has for the last eight years been a key clog in Charlottesville's political machinery, and it isn't by chance.

Maurice Cox grew up in a working middle class African American neighborhood that he saw change from a prosperous area to a blighted one. The second generation Bahamian lost his father at the tender age of three and his mother at the still innocent age of seven years old. This however, did not spell doom for Cox as his eight brothers and sisters had other plans, "In hindsight it is a pretty extraordinary thing that my older brothers and sisters made a pledge to my mom that every single one of their kids would be college educated and I'm very proud that every one of my brothers and sisters attended college and is pursuing all kinds of careers and this was socalled working class black family, my dad was an electrician and my mom was head nurse at Kings County Hospital but education is the key and it continues to be the key," Cox said.

Not only was the pledge to their mother fulfilled, but also along the way, a young Cox was nursed in activism and duty, a trend that still continues to drive him today. "I grew up in a family of activists, my mom was president of the neighborhood association, my sister president of the PTO association, so activism was dinner conversation. I realize obviously now that it was instilled in me that you have a responsibility not just to pass through but to make a difference, so what I have become is a simple product of what I was taught and what I am teaching my kids," he stated.

As a young man with artistic ability, Maurice Cox was constantly put in situations that increased his interests in visual arts. He was enrolled in so many after school and summer programs that he hardly recalls any idle time when he was not involved in something that would develop his ability. He attended high school in Manhattan and his rides to school as much as anything else had an impact on his choice of architecture as a discipline. "I like to think it was all those train trips into Manhattan on the elevated IRT line looking over the roofscapes of all these buildings. I went to a magnet high school in Manhattan where I was able to introduced toarchitecture as a discipline and from that time on I was determined to use my architechural talent to make a difference in a community's life. It's interesting as I look at my career, mission accomplished. Both in terms of the local level and also in the professional work that I've done working with some of the poorest African American communities in Virginia on the Eastern Shore," he noted:

After college, Cox accepted a position teaching for the University of Syracuse in Florence Italy, a place that he has very fond memories of, "It was one of the most energetic humane lifestyles that you could possibly imagine. If the form of a city has anything to do with the level of fitness, and civic engagement, and political engagement and the level of style that people pursue, Italy has a lock on it, the quality of life is the thing I remember most. The closeness of family's there, most families are multigenerational, today my wife's 90-year-old father lives with us here in Charlottesville, there's this incredible humanity about their cities and I have a feeling it really is tied to the form of the cities there. Pedestrians reign, you are visually stimulated, things are physically beautiful around you, people eat well, people take public transit, it has in many ways shaped my aspirations for Charlottesville and my determination to stay on that bike and to stay on public transit because it's a lifestyle issue and I think it affects the larger community and the quality of life that we are trying to have here."

When Cox decided to leave Florence to come back to the states he was attracted to the quality of education at the University of Virginia, the fact that there was a critical mass of African American students enrolled there, and was surprised by the fact that many of his colleagues at the school of Architecture had there students enrolled in the public schools, a fact that he says bodes well for this area.

When Cox moved to Charlottesville he moved into the Ridge Street neighborhood that is considered a low income neighborhood but one that has historically been one of the most economically diverse African American neighborhoods in the history of Charlottesville. Cox bought the house of George Ferguson of Ferguson Funeral home and who also was one of the plaintiffs that desegregated the schools of Charlottesville so Cox saw himself as having big shoes to fill, "I moved to a place where I knew I could make a difference. I was seeking a neighborhoods like the one that I remembered in my childhood and I found it. I went about advocating for the ability for all African American neighborhoods in Charlottesville to be successful and thriving neighborhood and I did it through neighborhood activism. I started advocating for Ridge Street to become a historic district and it became the first historic district in Charlottesville that was opening to a low-income neighborhood. I started to look at ways I could help the neighborhood from my discipline and how I could wake this neighborhood up and get it reengaged to the activism that it was known for in the 1960's and 70's."

Cox ran for and successfully won a seat on city council in 1996 and won reelection in 2000 along with being selected as the city's third African American mayor, a reality that in and of itself can make for serious scrutiny. Many black politicians have to deal with the delicate task of serving the general population while at the same time working to assure the black community that they have not forgotten their roots. Cox has strong words for those who think he has fallen short in that area, "When you look at the track record of having achieved a black majority on the school board, having school performance in schools that have it stacked against them performing, to having the unprecedented economic reinvestment in the core city, to have a transportation system that works for those who have no choice to live in the neighborhood that I live in everyday I walk by men who don't have a job, who need job training, and that is my reminder of where my commitment is and where it has to lie. At the same time my charge is to represent everyone in this community and I don't carry exclusively on my shoulders that I only represent 22% of this population, every single councilor represents 22% and represents 100%, so I would argue if there is any charge it may be that our white councilors are not black enough because we all need to be concerned how the full spectrum of the community survives. You can't get to fortyfive and live in a black skin, and live in the neighborhoods that I have lived in and not come out black enough," Cox stated forthrightly.

By choice Cox demanded to be the one city councilor who sat on the Housing Authority Board for the duration of his tenure because he is reminded of the needs of that population. That time included the controversial era of Earl Pullen and Dell Harvey. "All of the housing authority Directors have been black, all of them had a tenure that was successful during ooe part of their mission and less successful as the mission of the organization changed. What I think you see is a natural turnover in a stressful job in terms of the expanded mission of the Hosing Authority so I don't think there is anything unusual about the fact that there has been a turnover in the eight years that I have observed," Cox said.

For a black community that still feels the pain of the controversial Urban Renewal policy that led to the destruction of many buildings on the historically black Vinegar Hill, talk of revitalization can sound strikingly similar to gentrification. That reality is not lost on Cox's perception of what is going on in black city neighborhoods, and in the actions that he's taken to make a difference in them.

"Vinegar Hill is a legacy that I take some ownership of because I am in a design discipline and it was used against my own people so I'm always mindful of community suspicion of all of this planning." Cox points to the fact that the Jefferson School will benefit from the largest public investments that is made in Charlottesville as it will be preserved to create a lasting institution for the African American community as a cultural center and a library for all citizens of Charlottesville. This he says is the only way that the city can repay the damage that was done by initiatives like urban renewal. He is also quick to argue that the economic development going in the city is far from gentrification, "There is a difference between wrban renewal and revitalization," Cox said, "What you see going on in Tenth and Page and Fifeville is economic revitalization in neighborhoods that have not been invested in historically. The city alone has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars through the Piedmont Housing Alliance to buy boarded up and dilapidated property and substitute them with homeownership. Over 75% of what Piedmont Housing Alliance is doing is affordable... when people talk about economic reinvestment in black neighborhoods. They call it gentrification but when it's happening in Greenbrier all it is is economic revitalization." The outgoing mayor says that it is a priority to continue the reinvestment while at the same time not displacing current homeowners because of rising tax burdens do the appreciation of homes, senior citizens, he points out, should be targeted for tax relief programs as many may be on fixed budgets. According to Cox, the reinvestment amounts to increased black wealth through homeownership.

Cox's work as an architect and someone passionate about black neighborhoods and communities also extended itself to Virginia's Eastern Shore where he helped transform the impoverished Bayview community into one enjoying new construction of homes and businesses, it was a project dear to his heart, "They had this incredible human spirit and I was really taken by it. It's about providing people the tools and the assistance to do what they are capable of doing.

When asked about his legacy while on council, Cox has a clear idea of the work that he put in to make Charlottesville a better place, "I think it goes back to what our neighborhoods look and feel like. We got a hold of the underlying instruments, the zoning ordinance that was stopping mixed communities to emerge. When we look back and see a vibrant core of this community, where the vast majority of African Americans live and we see it as a healthy and vibrant community, I feel like I will have succeeded in what I set out to do." (The Reflector, April 28, 2004)