Have you driven through the poorest neighborhoods in Longview recently?

Prostitutes and drug dealers wave to passing cars in residential areas. Spray-painted warnings to “keep out” sprawl across boarded windows.

Houses, some abandoned but most occupied, rot alongside rutted, single-lane streets.

“Families coming from the north side (of town) would probably be in a culture shock,” said Demetrius Davis, a family assistance coordinator for the city.

Consider how the city’s neediest residents lived during the 2000 U.S. Census:

– More than 11,300 people — including 4,500 children — lived below the federal poverty level;

– Nearly 140 homes in Longview lacked adequate indoor plumbing;

– More than 50 homes had no indoor heating, and nearly 70 relied on wood for heat.

Plenty of people are struggling in Longview, according to Davis and other advocates. What would it take to help them?

For an idea, go back 20 years.

In 1989, one neighborhood’s outcry sparked a massive, communitywide undertaking known as Operation Clean Sweep, a program that eventually improved the lives of hundreds of residents. It started small, along a two-block stretch of South Martin Luther King Boulevard just north of Interstate 20.

It was called The Front.

From better days

The Front hadn’t always been such a bad place.

Years earlier, during segregation, the strip had been a social hub for black people living in Longview, said James Allen, 75, a longtime resident.

There were cafes, clubs and even a motel, he said, and all were owned by black business people.

“That was the front of excitement, I guess,” he said. “That’s the way it got the name — The Front.”

Allen, who insists he did not partake in the excitement, said he moved into the neighborhood in 1964 or ’65. By 1989, many of the establishments and frame houses had fallen into disrepair.

That January, a couple of young newspaper reporters happened to drive by The Front during their lunch break. What they saw disturbed them.

They found dilapidated houses on unimproved streets and weeds that choked vacant lots. Trash, junked cars and abandoned furniture littered the area.

“I had lived in East Texas pretty much all my life,” said Michael Ramey, one of the reporters. “I was born in New London. But I had not seen an area like that growing up in East Texas.”

Slums and drugs

The two journalists wanted to know more.

In her reporting, Relicia Jones met Louella Black, a neighborhood resident who said she was tired of living in the slumlike conditions.

“She told us stories that really knocked our socks off, about drug use in the neighborhood, how some of the houses essentially had been abandoned or were overgrown lots, a haven for druggies using them as essentially a shooting gallery,” Ramey said.

Ramey and Jones spent about a month interviewing residents and examining state laws and city policies. Twenty years ago this Thursday, the newspaper began publishing a series of stories that took city officials to task for overlooking the deplorable state of the neighborhood.

The headlines read:

– “The Front: It’s a part of Longview scarred by abandoned houses, overgrown lots and plagued by crime and drugs. This report examines the problems the city and residents face at The Front.”

– “Area’s residents fed up, want city to take action”

– “City not using all resources”

– “Drugs breed danger zone: Police need cooperation of community, chief says”

– “Apartment manager strives to make a safe home for her tenants”

“When it came out, it really caused a furor,” Ramey said. “I think at the time, the black community and the poor community really didn’t feel like they had much of a voice in the city or were getting much of a response to their problems.

“The response to it was just phenomenal,” he said. “The residents gathered at a church in late February and had a big meeting where 100 or more people came. They spoke out and said they were ready to change the nature and character of the neighborhood.

“And that’s when I first met Brenda Yoder.”

A movement begins

The effort to change had found a leader. Yoder was a “bundle of energy,” Ramey recalls, a housewife with four young children and a husband in the construction business.

Yoder lived in a more affluent neighborhood on the north side of town, but she said she felt compelled to help Black and her neighbors.

“I read an article at my house and I remember when I got through reading, I asked my husband, ‘Where in this town is an area that this lady wouldn’t feel safe?’ ” she recalled. “I told him I want to find this area.

“We drove and went to go see it, and I just happened to get out and knock on the very door of the lady they did the article on. And I knew it was a God thing.

“All I thought was I’d help this one little lady,” she said. “I knew I had the means. I had the husband who had all the subcontractors who could come help me, and we could clean this lot up and she could get back out and do her garden and she’d be happy and I’d be happy and that would be it. But the response on that work day — people were coming from Daingerfield. People were coming from all over and I was like, ‘Do what?’ I couldn’t believe it.”

They called it Operation Clean Sweep, and it grew. The program secured federal funding and expanded to other homes, which Yoder said she identified and rigorously screened throughout the year.

At its height, teams of 2,500 residents attended work days sponsored by the likes of Eastman Chemical-Texas Operations and LeTourneau University.

“You should have seen this thing at the end,” Yoder said. “It was just surreal. They had a command station set up with all the materials stacked up. They had walkie-talkies and a captain of each house. It was a long work day, and no one of course ever finished, so they would come back weekend after weekend until they finished them.”

Before the project came crumbling down about four years later, Clean Sweep was restoring around 100 homes a year, Yoder said. She worked year-round and traveled throughout Texas helping other cities establish cleanup efforts.

“It was good,” Yoder said. “It was a good project. I went several years, and the city screwed me up and took it away from me.”

Corruption charges

City officials accused Yoder and another program coordinator of falsifying bids for construction materials. According to News-Journal archives, officials asked police to investigate when inaccurate quotes were discovered during a routine review of payments for materials and services.

Yoder said she believes the move was a power play to redistribute her program’s federal funds. The former city officials did not return phone calls or could not be reached.

“If they had just said, ‘Why is this like this?’ then I could have answered them,” she said. “I could have solved it right there in the office and resolved it. But they didn’t do it that way. They said, ‘We’re shutting you down.’ ”

Police investigated but found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Clement Dunn, then Gregg County’s first assistant district attorney, oversaw a grand jury investigation into Clean Sweep soon thereafter.

“There were some very good, very well-intentioned people doing some very good work” for Operation Clean Sweep, recalls Dunn, a local lawyer. “From time to time, when something is out there in the public domain, somebody will get unhappy about something, and sometimes they go to law enforcement with it. No matter what it is, we always felt it didn’t serve the public interest to create the appearance of ‘swept under the rug.’ We felt the grand jury was the appropriate forum for the community to address those kind of complaints.”

The jurors also cleared the two volunteers. By then, however, the damage was done.

“I had to go to a grand jury, and believe me that is terrifying,” Yoder said. “One thing about them, you’ve got the (district attorney) investigation going, and they don’t leave a stone unturned. They no-billed me. They came back and couldn’t find anything. Everything checked out beautifully.”

Reacting to the negative publicity, Yoder said, Eastman ended its involvement in the cleanup.

“When Eastman pulled out, there went Operation Clean Sweep, and how sad,” she said. “How sad.”

Looking back, Yoder remembers the program as the highlight of her life.

“I think Longview is a better place because of Operation Clean Sweep,” she said. “I think a lot of people felt gutsy enough and inspired enough to do greater things because of it.”

The Front today

Today, Front residents say the neighborhood remains peaceful and relatively free of crime.

Charles Williams, 66, moved in soon after Allen in 1965. A retired materials handler for Eastman Chemical, Williams said mostly elderly people live in the isolated neighborhood.

“People don’t even know anything about this little area,” he said. “They don’t even know anything about it or that it even exists. I guess that’s why it’s so quiet, even though we’re right here by the interstate.”

Williams is content with the state of his neighborhood, he said, but he would like to see more of the streets curbed and guttered.

“We’ve been here 40-some-odd years, and nothing’s ever been done about these streets,” he said.

Williams and Allen said they have vague recollections of Operation Clean Sweep.

“A few years earlier my memory might have been better, but since that stroke my mind is a little fuzzy,” said Allen, who retired from Lone Star Steel several years ago.

Allen’s beef now lies with a hole-in-the-wall night spot, the Grownfolks Club, that operates within view of his house.

“They get loud every Wednesday and Saturday night,” he said. “Talk about Clean Sweep, if we could sweep that, we’d be clean.”

Other slums

Other neighborhoods are in worse shape than The Front. Abandoned houses, pockets of disrepair and havens for crime remain throughout South Longview.

LeTourneau University students continue annual cleanup efforts, and local churches and groups also take part in smaller restoration ministries. Government and municipal employees such as Demetrius Davis, the Circles of East Texas coordinator for Partners in Prevention, work to help families overcome poverty and find safe, affordable housing.

Under the right circumstances, Yoder said, she believes another communitywide project such as Operation Clean Sweep could take shape.

“I think there’s a lot of good people that want to do something good,” she said. “If there’s something good there they’ll be a part of it. They just don’t know how to make something start.

“And I think Operation Clean Sweep came at a perfect time and so many people were getting involved and hearing good things and just wanted to be a part of it. I think it would be the same way today.”

Ramey now is the news technology editor for The Washington Post. Like Yoder, he said he believes Longview would again rally around a clean sweep.

“It’s easy to step back and say that in a bad economy it’s hard for people to do this sort of thing, but as I remember it, Texas was going through a huge drop in oil prices causing some economic issues, especially in East Texas, (which was) at that time dependent on the oil business.”

The difference, he said, was that so many people gave their time and money. Just as important, he said, was Yoder’s dynamic leadership.

“I think that kind of effort can happen today,” he said. “I don’t think it takes a critical story to get people involved in an effort. Especially in East Texas, I think there’s a real spirit to give.”