Valerie Ervin: “Reluctant Politician” Who is Making History:
The freshman County Council member has a history as full as the on she’s creating

by Gregory Kohn

Valerie Ervin found her way into the principal’s office where her fourth grade son Jonathan attended school.  Immediately, she began to question his placement into the lowest-level reading group. 

The principal tried to explain that many parents think their children are smarter than they really are.  He may have also been thinking that Jonathan fit the profile of a poor reader, the son of a single African-American mother who probably had little time to help him with homework. 

Undeterred, Ervin paid $2,000 for Jonathan’s reading ability to be tested outside of the school system.  The test results showed that Jonathan read at a 10th grade level – his poor performance in class coming from boredom. 

Valerie Ervin, the activist, was born.

Several Firsts for “Common Person”

On December 4th, 2006, nearly ten years later, Ervin received a loud ovation while being sworn in at Strathmore Hall as a new member of the Montgomery County Council. Her election was a breakthrough. She is the first single mother on the Council, the first African-American woman on the Council, and the first woman of any color to represent the Silver Spring-Takoma Park district.

Valerie Ervin, surrounded by the volunteers who helped her get elected in a short campaign period.

Ervin’s official announcement of her campaign to run for the County Council took place last June directly across the street from her Silver Spring home on the front steps of the Old Montgomery Blair (currently Silver Spring International) where her oldest son Solomon attended high school.  As she spoke, Ervin chose to surround herself by none other than current Blair students. 

Now, Ervin, 49, is in a position to influence policy.  Her top priority is to establish a better learningenvironment for children of working-class families, like her own. 

Dan Parr, the chief of staff for former councilmember Tom Perez, explains Ervin’s focus: “Her background has given her a good sense of the common person.  That’s the perspective she takes, and it is one that is often missing from people who get into politics.” 

Ervin already has a track record from serving on the Board of Education from 2004 to 2006.  In that short time she pushed the school system to institute “all-day” kindergarten in all elementary schools, hire more assistant principals in elementary schools, create “parent community coordinators,” and get better translating equipment for Spanish-speaking parents.

On the County Council, Ervin aims to direct more resources to help end the achievement gap between affluent and low-income students.  This includes expanding the Gifted and Talented program (GT) to more schools and to more low-income students.

Her other goal is to increase the time working-class parents are able to spend with their children.  She plans to do this by finding ways to increase their wages so they don’t have to work as many hours and improving mass transit to cut down on their time spent commuting.

To put in perspective the magnitude of Ervin’s opportunity, the County Council budget is about the same size as that of the entire state of Rhode Island.

A Humble Beginning

The room was crowded when Ervin and her friend Susan Phillips arrived.  There were six Nicaraguan poultry workers and several beds on the floor jammed up against the wall, but only two chairs.  Ervin and Phillips struggled to communicate with broken Spanish as they attempted to set up a labor union at the North Carolina poultry factory in the early 1990’s. 

Suddenly, Ervin noticed one of the women sitting on the floor was pregnant and without hesitation gave up her chair and sat herself on the floor, barely missing a beat.

A friend for more than twenty years, Phillips recalls this simple gesture as one that defines Ervin.  “It exemplifies her approach to people: do what you can for others, no matter how small a gesture,” she says.  “It all counts.”

Indeed, most observers agree that Ervin does not suffer from the superiority complex that often plagues politicians.  Perhaps this humility can be traced to Ervin’s humble beginnings.

With her dad in the Air Force, Ervin spent her childhood on the move, living in a new place about every three years.  Being a military brat taught her to overcome her shyness in order to make friends.  Furthermore, with her father gone a lot she looked up to her mother and discovered an inner strength. 

“My mother was one of the strongest women I have ever known.  I learned how to be tough and how to survive,” Ervin says.

She demonstrated this as a union organizer on the road for weeks at a time, traveling to the catfish factories of Mississippi, the poultry factories of North Carolina, and the ranches of New Mexico where an African-American woman in her position was a rare and sometimes unwelcome sight.

It was this unwelcome part that had her dad, the military man, telling her that her job posed too big a threat to her well-being.  “He didn’t want me to do it.  And looking back, I can’t believe I did,” Ervin says with a beaming smile and eyes wide open.

As a young woman, Ervin struggled to make ends meet by working as a grocery clerk in a Safeway, same as her mother, and living with her two sons in subsidized housing.  This experience helped shape her views today.

“I know what it’s like to work very hard and to have very little,” Ervin says. 

Her promotion to union organizer came after a union official noticed her outgoing, friendly manner while volunteering for a New Mexico politician.  She rose through the ranks and moved to the Washington D.C. area in 1987. 

For several years she juggled the traveling the demands of her job with being a single parent.   “I thought that’s how everyone lived,” Jonathan said with a laugh.

Finally she gave up the travel, but then she began to juggle involvement at the public schools her sons attended.  When Jonathan reached Montgomery Blair his mom became the school’s PTSA president.

Phillips is impressed by Ervin’s ability to tackle several tasks that would overwhelm the average person.

“A Reluctant Politician”

Running for the County Council was no snap decision for Ervin.  Committing to a campaign required Ervin to give up her job as County Councilmember George Leventhal’s chief of staff.  Even though Ervin was now a highly qualified professional, she was hesitant to become unemployed. 

“In many ways she is a reluctant politician,” Parr explains.

Ervin finally made her decision just one month before the filing deadline.  The delay cost her the chance to hire many of the Democratic “old hands” with campaign experience because they were already pledged to other candidates.  Ervin decided to rely on her friends and a small group of students.  Susan Phillips agreed to be her campaign manager, and two Blair seniors, Adam Yalowitz and Avi Edelman agreed to handle the day-to-day chores of the campaign during their summer vacation.

The enthusiasm that Yalowitz and Edelman brought to the campaign was a big positive. “We have a lot of free time and provide an energy that may be missing otherwise,” Yalowitz explains.  The only negative was the time restrictions on their driving permits that forced them to wait until 5 a.m. after they made last-minute Ervin fliers for the Labor Day parade at two in the morning.

Phillips didn’t just consent to helping Ervin because of their long friendship; she also believes in what Ervin stands for.  “Valerie will do what she thinks is right, not what is necessarily politically expedient,” Phillips says.

Another member of the campaign, Fran Rothstein, succeeded Ervin as PTSA president of Blair.  She attributes some of Ervin’s success to her willingness to reach out to all kinds of people. “Valerie has a range of knowledge and a diverse network of supporters that always amazes me,” Rothstein says.

Tough Enough

After her victory, Ervin reflects on her campaign in her brick-red, book-lined living room with her son Jonathan, home for the holidays from his sophomore year at a college in North Carolina.

Ervin explains she didn’t leave it up to her campaign staff to run everything. She herself went house to house to sway voters. “Being a politician is a great outgrowth of being a union organizer: knocking on doors is one thing I knew how to do,” she says.

And Ervin got elected.

Those who questioned Valerie Ervin’s toughness in confronting the incumbent men on the County Council were answered in her first week on the job. 

In a controversial debate over the divvying up of grants, Ervin supported giving a citizens advisory group the final say.  When Leventhal, her former boss, disagreed and explained the number of members needed for majority, Ervin didn’t hesitate in rebutting with a smart comment:  “Thank you for that lecture on counting, [Mr. Leventhal]. I think all four of us that were elected count really well."

Part of History

Ervin’s life has never been easy.  But through it all she has kept a sense of pride, an appreciation for any help she gets, and above all a sense of humor. 

The volunteers who helped Ervin during the tumultuous months of her campaign didn’t just receive a hand shake or a pat on the back.  Instead Ervin threw a thank-you party and gave them something creative and funny to her express her gratitude.

Yalowitz and Edelman received flash lights symbolizing all the late nights they put in.  Keith Berner, another campaign staffer, was handed a yo-yo because of his bouncing from idea to idea.  Adam Luecking, the campaign chair, was given a sword to represent his leader-like role. 

It is truly remarkable to see a woman with a determination that takes her from the constant changing of schools while a girl, to the difficulties of raising two boys as a single mother, to a job as a grocery clerk who leans on the government for rent money, and finally to her current role as a pioneer in politics for working-class women and minorities. 

“There is no road map for me, so I am making this road by walking it,” Ervin comments.

The many people who voted for her say she’s headed in the right direction.

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