Article originally printed in Free Press (Volume 8 • Issue 13 • Sept. 20 -Oct. 3,  2000)

Written by Stephanie Harris

Flash Gordon

Howard "Flash" Gordon has never been to the planet Mongo, been hit with flaming hail or had a girlfriend named Dale Arden, but this quasi-hero does fight for this world and its inhabitants. He is also fighting for a spot on the city Board of Directors.

From marching with Dr. Martin Luther King in Alabama to being a missionary in Nicaragua to feeding the hungry in downtown Little Rock, helping others has always been part of Gordon's life.

Gordon, 61, has been minister of First Presbyterian Church for the last eight years. He has helped the church in its vision to minister to the city. Continuing the theme, "A vision for the future from experience in the city" reads his campaign motto.

If experience counts this November, Gordon certainly has the resume. Born in Homer, La., Gordon earned a B.A. from Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C. and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va. Gordon studied economic development as a Merrill Fellow at Harvard and business ethics as a Research Fellow at Yale. He also learned to speak Spanish at a school in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Gordon has been called "Flash" since birth. The mayor of Homer thought it would be funny to announce in the newspaper a baby boy, Flash Gordon, was born to Dr. and Mrs. Gordon. The name, inspired by a comic strip, stuck.

Gordon's father was a Presbyterian minister in Louisiana. Gordon said he is fortunate to have been raised by a special father and the only white man in town to shake black men's hands and address black women as "Mrs."

Gordon said he felt he had to do something against racism. He walked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in small marches and also had the privilege of hearing the "I have a dream" speech by King. Gordon said it became apparent he had to teach others and get them involved.

Proving yet again he is not afraid to stand up to conflict, Gordon, in the 1970s, was invited along with six other Presbyterian ministers to visit Cuba. The ministers were asked by the Cuban government to see their way of life on the island.
 

Gordon said the Presbyterian Church has historically been on record against the Cuban embargo, part of the reason for the invitation. Because there were no direct flights from the United States, they had to fly through Jamaica. Gordon said the poverty and instability of Jamaica provided a stark contrast to life in Cuba.

While Cubans may not be as well off financially as Americans, Gordon said the people on the island were "healthy, educated and happy." Upon his return to the United States, Gordon was named by the Cuban government to an international committee working on a plan called "the reunification of the Cuban family."

His involvement angered many people of the Cuban exile community.

"Anyone who said anything good about Cuba was the enemy," Gordon said. "I went back several years later as a representative of the church to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. I found the conclusions I came to on the first trip were true: The USA is the bad guy in this story. Having said that made a lot of those who ran away from their mother land for economic reasons, called greed, have a lot of guilt towards those who stayed, and anger towards those who saw them [Cuban residents] as I did."

The U.S. foreign policy was not on the side of the Cuban people, Gordon said, nor were the people of Nicaragua considered in the 1980s when he was a missionary there. "Our foreign policy was on the side of economic interest," Gordon said.

Gordon's mission was to understand what was going on and to express support for the Nicaraguan people. So the church would not have to rely on the State Department or multi-national corporations for its information, Gordon and others kept the church aware of what was happening. His efforts to help communities continued in the United States.

Gordon's ideas and beliefs are products of his upbringing and diverse experience. He said he grew up in the "sweetness, light and security of the pre-Brown v. Board of Education" era. The Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in 1954, which led to the desegregation of schools. The Civil Rights era was born.

"What the 60s did was help me figure out that no matter how ugly or threatening the situation is, I can still feel secure," Gordon said. "So the KKK wants to burn a cross in my front yard. So what? That ugliness will disappear."

"The people of Cuba and Nicaragua and Little Rock will win when we learn not to be afraid of the bullies who are usually very greedy and nasty. I cannot be bullied either by the powerful or the powerless."

Gordon said he came to Little Rock because First Presbyterian wanted to serve the city, not only its congregation. "You don't come here [attend church] to be ministered to. You come here to minister," Gordon said. "That means we will always be small. We won't be powerful, but that is not our task. The church's task is to minister outward to the community."

Gordon joked that the church is full of people all week and empty on Sunday. First Presbyterian's Sunday services may not boast the highest numbers in town (around 200), but he is right about the weekdays. The 41,000 square foot church is almost full with non-profit organizations and community services, in addition to church offices.

The 25-year-old soup kitchen, Stewpot, continues to feed the hungry five days a week. There is a free clinic and a room full of clothes for Little Rock's homeless and poor. Habitat for Humanity, Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN), Save Our Children and League of Urban Latin American Citizens operate in locations throughout the church.

"The use of the church for all of the groups was my idea in some ways but is very much part of our [Presbyterian] tradition," Gordon said. "I did not think it up. I grew up with it."

"The Stewpot was the idea of other congregations and it was placed here for two reasons: They didn't want it in their church and secondly this congregation was not strong enough to say no," Gordon said. "That was 25 years and a million meals ago."

Toothpick, a homeless Little Rock man, was walking by First Presbyterian seven or eight years ago when Gordon asked him if he was interested in work. Toothpick accepted odd jobs, including cooking and cleaning, around the church. He and Gordon have been friends ever since.
"Flash is a God-loving, spiritual man. I've never heard a bad thing from him," Toothpick said. "We've always loved each other. He's been good to me and I've been good to him."

D.A. Bradley cooks for Stewpot five days a week. He said Gordon is one of the best people he has met, giving to people in any way he can, whether it is food, clothing or money.

The first request for space in the church after Gordon arrived was from the Korean congregation. By the time First Presbyterian finally decided to invite the Koreans in, they had already found a church in which to worship. Gordon said their decision opened up their mindset and the vision began to grow within the congregation.

RAIN has been in the church for just over a year. Sybil Cunningham is the director and spoke of their move to the church.

"It is the most ideal situation for any ministry. To be in the company of other important ministries, in a central location and with these facilities has been an absolute gift," Cunningham said. 

As for Gordon, "To know him is to love him. He and the staff welcomed us with open arms."

Paul Cox, a member of the congregation who sits on church boards, said Gordon has always been one to reach out to the community and get involved. He said the minister has also been very aggressive in getting church members to participate in community work.

"You feel like you are needed [by the church]," Cox said. "You're not just a face lost in the crowd."

The congregation is Gordon's first priority. He spoke with everyone involved with the church about being a candidate for the city Board race before making his final decision to run.

"Howard likes to be involved in what's going on in the city," Cox said. "He can use his experience to get this city on course."

Cox said there have been heated discussions in church board meetings, but he has always left them knowing Gordon would never do anything differently than what the committee had agreed upon. "I have the utmost trust in the man."

Tommie Best, an elder in the church, is also confident in Gordon's style of decision-making. She has known him since her late husband, Ken Best, and others recruited Gordon to minister the church.

"He [Gordon] is always looking for the best way to serve a situation. He always considers everyone," Best said. "He has this ability to communicate with all types of people, of all ages."

"Sometimes Howard is able, in a tense situation, to put everyone at ease with humor," Best said.

"One example of his sense of humor is when he walked through hospital corridors wearing a clown mask to visit Best's 39 year-old daughter Debra when she was dying of leukemia. "He would always come to cheer her up," Best said.

Gordon recently visited Lavaughn Wilson in a hospital where she was waiting to receive a pacemaker. Wilson has attended First Presbyterian since 1947. She said she noticed a change immediately upon Gordon's arrival in Little Rock.

"We have more fun," Wilson said. She said his new ideas were refreshing. There are also new, younger faces in the church; the "pre-social security group" as Gordon refers to them. 
Wilson said it is fine that Gordon is running for the city Board. "If he believes in it, he'll work for it. He's not afraid," Wilson said.

Soup kitchen cook Bradley is another supporter of Gordon's candidacy.

"I'd like to see him get on the city Board," Bradley said. "He doesn't just stand up for the rich people. He stands up for everybody."

Gordon's community involvement includes the MacArthur Park Historic District Commission, Downtown Neighborhood Association, the Pastoral Care Department at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, MacArthur Park Neighborhood Association, Coalition of Center City Congregations and the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice.

Gordon has never run for public office before, but he said he has been frustrated with the way city government works in Little Rock.

Gordon said it seems "the way government works is they do it and if no one complains they are ahead of the game. If someone complains, they fix it. Making decisions like that means everyone is angry."

"The secretary at the desk stays angry because angry people are always coming looking for her boss. The boss stays angry because the only citizen he or she ever sees is an angry citizen. The citizens are angry because they know they can't trust government."

"My task all my life," Gordon said, "has been how to make decisions in a way that everybody is a part of the process." Gordon added he knows the problems debated [on the city Board] will be the same, but a process is needed which the citizens can trust.

"What we need are leaders, not bureaucrats, not politicos, not people who have always been in the system, but people who will take a stand to expand the parameters of discussion," Gordon said. "If I can expand the boundaries five percent, that's progress."

"Just a few years ago Little Rock was a small city and we could make decisions individually on each part [of the city]," Gordon said. "Now with the annexation of all the land out west, we need to begin to make policy statements about the growth and the roads."

"We need growth. We need retail, but how do you support it? You can't support it by destroying neighborhoods." He said we cannot make one neighborhood survive if it hurts another neighborhood on the other side of town. "We need to find how each component of the city can balance the other components."

"The problem is our [Little Rock's] speculators are looking [at cities] where other speculators are still making money in areas that don't match who we are," Gordon said. "We ought to find out where there has been sustainable long term development that has worked instead of where rampant speculation is still going on."

In addition to Gordon's stance on fair, responsible growth, his campaign platform includes government accountability, regional decisions and inclusiveness.

"City government ought to be accountable. No secret deals," Gordon said. "The deals made behind the scenes by people with power and money make citizens mad. Who is in whose pocket is always a real question, even in my race."

"Things have to be done regionally," Gordon said. "We have to make decisions with other cities like North Little Rock and Jacksonville. Our highways, river and water are the same."

"Nobody should think they can make a decision for somebody else," Gordon insisted. "Everybody who is affected by a decision should sit at the table."

Gordon said the times in which he has lived give him the confidence of knowing who he is is all right. "It also means I am not needy. When you are not needy, you are free."

"Knowing who I am means I can meet with and work with anybody without being threatened," Gordon proclaimed. If someone is doing something that hurts the city, "I can propose to them changes in their actions and attitudes that will help the whole."

Gordon said there is a difference between developers and speculators. Defined by Webster's dictionary, to develop is "to realize the potentialities of; to aid in the growth of: strengthen." Speculation is "engagement in risky business deals on the chance of large, quick profits."
"Developers build things that last," Gordon explained. "Developers build parks and streets that are people-friendly."