BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Her name was Lillian Brown Jones Rafe.

On Sept. 15, she died in Youngstown, Ohio, at age 96. An unpretentious woman, she lived a simple and private life with straightforward goals: to love God, raise four good and just children, create a corner of warmth and security in the world she inhabited.

But in the process, she gave Cincinnati a rare gift. His name is Judge Nathaniel R. Jones, of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

This third child - whom she called her ''keen-eyed son'' - would move far beyond the world of working-class Youngstown.

He would establish his own law practice, when such things were rare for young black men. He would be appointed an assistant U.S. attorney during the Kennedy administration. As general counsel for the NAACP, he would champion the fight for civil rights during some of the most significant, and difficult, legal proceedings this nation has faced.

And, during a dinner at the White House, he would hear President Jimmy Carter appoint him a federal judge.

A quiet example

His name would become widely known. His mother's would not. His influence would be considerable. Hers would extend almost exclusively through her children.

But, through them, she would take her own place in shaping the soul of America.

Lillian Brown Jones Rafe's story is that rare glimpse of America, and humankind, at its best. It is the selfless love and fortitude that makes one generation toil in darkness so another may soar in light. It is the encouragement of goodness in a child that results in the greatness of a man.

Mrs. Rafe grew up in the segregated South, keenly aware of the realities of racial discrimination and just as resolute about finding a way around them.

''She realized she was without leverage to change the system. She knew she couldn't change an attitude or a practice like a swimming pool being reserved for white children. So she worked on what she could change - her children,'' Nathaniel Jones says.

When white truck drivers cruised down their street, calling out racial epithets to the Jones children, their mother would teach them sweetly tart rejoinders. When a neighbor hustled her white grandson into the house and away from his black neighbors, Mrs. Rafe would remind her children the boy was a valued playmate and an innocent party.

''She instilled in us the ability to rationalize that, when an individual did something cruel, it was the act of an individual and didn't go beyond that. The misdeeds of one person didn't impact others,'' Judge Jones says.

He calls her advice ''coping skills.'' They allowed him to move through injustice while remaining just, to confront bigotry without becoming embittered.

His mother's quiet insistence on fairness and kindness, especially to the smallest and weakest, left her son the eternal champion of underdogs.

Tapping resources

But holding such values was one thing. Bolstering them with the skills to effect legal redress and change was another.

Mrs. Rafe's formal education stopped at fourth grade. Although she spent decades earning her high school diploma - graduating as valedictorian of her class at age 62 - still she knew she could not expose her children to all they would need to move forward in the world.

So, in the largesse of motherhood, she sent them on to others. Sunday School teachers who would groom them in oratorical contests. National figures who led YMCA forums on current issues. And, in young Nathaniel's case, his mother would introduce him - ''deliver'' him, he says - to J. Maynard Dickerson, a black lawyer, publisher and civil rights leader who would serve as his mentor.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Rafe did what it took to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. She cleaned houses, took in laundry, sold J.R. Watkins products, worked evenings as a theater matron.

And prayed, hard and faithfully, for her children.

Her ways were quiet and her path narrow, yet in her life we see where her son's goodness and greatness began.

Let us not forget her.

Her name was Lillian Brown Jones Rafe. She was an honorable woman.

Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

RAMSEY ARCHIVE