Nina Jordan Portsmouth Branch First Vice President 

 

For Nina Jordan, there is a direct tie bewtween her work in the NAACP and her spiritual journey as a Buddhist.  Both of these life-defining paths planted their seeds in Nina when she was a child. 

 Her family consisted of hard-working immigrants from Italy.  Nina's mother, Angela Rose Pepe, was from Waterbury Connecticut, where Nina was born in 1938.  This side of her family emigrated from Naples in the late 1800s; her grandfather manufactured Macaroni products and imported large rounds of provolone cheese and salami.  Nina's father Pietro John Capra came to this country through Ellis Island in 1909 when he was only 10 years old.  While in the service, a lieutenant saw his potential and gave him a letter of introduction to Phillips Andover.  He laid awake the night before his first day at Phillips, wondering how he would do at a rich kid's school.  Within three years, he won a scholarship to Yale and later became the executive director of the Boy's Club of NY. 

 Nina recalls living in New Rochelle, NY during the 1940s and 50s, and being influenced by the work her father was doing with Negro (which was the term used at the time) boys.  At the age of 9, Nina saw a G.W. Carver film in school about slavery, Bright April.  The story was about a nine-year-old child, Brownie, taken from her mother.  The child's comments about color touched young Nina's heart.  She began to look around her and see the suffering in the world.  She also began to question her Roman Catholic beliefs.  By the time her family moved to Manhattan, where Nina attended convent school, she was on her way to becoming an agnostic.

After her first year in Queen's College, Nina became a counselor at a camp in Staten Island, NY, for welfare moms and their children.  She discovered that most of the staff: director, supervisor and counselors was from Howard University.  She perceived this as an opportunity for deeper friendships with people of color.  Nina became close to a counselor from DC.  Their families visited each other for years. 

 I believe that more than the work place, picnics and social gatherings, visiting each other's homes illustrates our sameness, says Nina.  Her initial surprise was that their two homes were so much alike indicating that she had expectations of which she had not been aware.

 Nina's first real involvement in the NAACP came in 1991, when she went to Portsmouth to hear Julian Bond - long time civil rights activist and the current chairman of the national NAACP.  She recalls being surprised to see so many people of color.  She had been living in Lee, NH since 1969 where there were only one or two black families.

Becoming more concerned about the suffering in the world, Nina saw the NAACP as a way she would be able to initiate change.  Then she heard the Buddhist Bodhicaravatara sutra, which is about suffering.  This ancient text states that whatever good deeds we do should relieve the suffering of others.  Nina had found her spiritual home.  She began her journey on a path that is not a religion, but a way of life.  (Unlike religions, Buddha was not a prophet or incarnation of the Divine.)  This path teaches that we must take responsibility for our thoughts, words and deeds.  It teaches about the interconnection between all things, mindfulness, compassion, understanding and suffering.  For Nina, another important lesson in Buddhism is not to do good deeds out of a desire for recognition or glory, but with a constant reminder that all actions must be humble.

Nina became involved with Legal Redress in 1994 with Sheila Findlay after hearing that a bi-racial child was racially harassed during school.  At the time, she was a teacher at Moharimet Elementary School in Madbury, New Hampshire and implemented the Verbal Abuse Policy to handle playground verbal abuse.  Having compassion as well as a degree in mediation and counseling, she uses negotiation, atentative language skills and active listening in Legal Redress issues.  Sometimes she finds she must set aside her official title and just sit quietly, as a Buddhist, with someone who needs support and understanding.

Legal Redress in schools is my expression of Buddhism, Nina said.

Her political activism is also an expression of Buddhism.  Nina was arrested last May demonstrating for an exit strategy from Iraq, with activists from Seacoast Peace Response & New Hampshire Peace Action, at congressional offices.  I have not been arrested before.  I have attended marches since before the Iraq war in San Diego, Portsmouth, and DC last September, when I was an affinity person, not ready to risk arrest.