Nora King, 70; Nickerson Gardens Activist Advocated for Jobs, Training

Nora King, a longtime community activist in the Nickerson Gardens public housing project in Watts, where she was a tireless advocate for jobs, training and other programs for residents, has died. She was 70.

King, who received local and congressional recognition for her work, died Oct. 12 at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood of a stroke following surgery, her family said.

King, a Nickerson Gardens resident for more than 30 years, was president of the nonprofit Nickerson Gardens Resident Management Corp., which acts as a liaison between the project’s residents and the Los Angeles Housing Authority and other agencies.

Built in 1955, Nickerson Gardens is the largest low-income housing complex west of the Mississippi, with 1,065 units and more than 4,000 residents.

“For Nora, it was always about jobs and economic development within the housing development,” said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes Nickerson Gardens.

Speaking with The Times this week, Hahn recalled that at a recent news conference at Nickerson Gardens, King insisted that Mayor James K. Hahn, the councilwoman’s brother, “come over and speak to her personally” so King could reiterate her desire that residents be hired to administer any program grants the Housing Authority might receive.

“So she was always tugging on my arm or the mayor’s arm and always making sure we were listening to her concerns,” Councilwoman Hahn said.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) remembered King as “a forceful, very confident woman.”

“Once she decided that she was doing the right thing, she would not be deterred, and she would take on anybody to get it done,” Waters said. “She was a real force in Nickerson Gardens, and there is going to be a leadership vacuum because of her death.”

During King’s first tenure as president from 1989 to 1992, Nickerson Gardens received a $1.3-million grant from the city’s Transportation Department to train residents as drivers and put them to work transporting other residents to jobs and hospitals. The city also trained and licensed residents as security guards.

King contacted several agencies to donate or discount equipment to establish a computer lab for residents. And she worked with Waters to establish a Nickerson Gardens day-care center for children 5 and older, as well a training program in which volunteers could earn a master’s degree while tutoring residents.

Voted out of office by the residents in 1992, King was reelected three years later and vowed to help tenants take charge of their lives and community.

“The biggest part for me is to give hope to the people,” she told The Times. “I’m stepping out on faith. I don’t know which way I’m going, but I know where I want to go.”

She said she wasn’t sure at first that she wanted to run again for a seat on the volunteer seven-member Resident Management Corp. board but made up her mind when she realized how much was at stake.

“How could I say no when I look around and see the little children running around out there?” she said. “Maybe I can make a difference.”

Born in Magnolia, Ark., the once-married King was a single mother when she and her four sons moved to Nickerson Gardens in 1973. Although she worked as a waitress and held other jobs off and on, “we primarily grew up on government assistance,” said her son, Darryl King. He recalled that his mother was always taking in children and adults who needed help.

“You’ve got to understand my mother, she was a mother to everybody,” he said.

King began expanding her community involvement at Nickerson Gardens in the early 1980s, spurred to action by Darryl, then active in campus politics at UC Santa Barbara.

“A lot of time when people are on government assistance, they get complacent,” he said. “I said, ‘You’ve got to do something. Don’t just say something is wrong. Get out there and do something about it.’ She took off after that.”

Linda Williams, a housing advocate with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said King was instrumental in bringing many educational programs to the project, including courses on domestic violence and dispute-resolution training. Most recently, she and King were working to create a youth resource center.

“She was a strong leader, and she cared deeply about Nickerson Gardens and the residents there,” Williams said.

The last time Williams saw King was earlier this month, when Williams was about to leave for a national housing-law conference in Washington, D.C.

“She said, ‘Baby, learn everything you can and bring it back to us,’ ” recalled Williams. “To the very end, she was looking out for the residents of Nickerson.”

In addition to Darryl King, she is survived by her three other sons, Gary and Jerome King and Cedric Evans; 17 grandchildren; her sisters, Jimmie Lee Copeland and Salathel T. Williams; and her brother, Donald Lee Copeland.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. today at Crenshaw Christian Center, 7901 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles.