San Francisco Supervisor Sophie Maxwell says education makes San Quentin graduates powerful and can change themselves and their communities.
“People will be open to you if you believe,” Maxwell said as the guest speaker at the June 2010 Commencement for more than 200 graduates of programs by the Robert E. Burton Adult School and Patten University. “You know that you are a powerful people, and you can do anything. This is a moment of transcendence for all of you. With this (education), you men can do anything that you put your minds to.”
Maxwell, 60, was born in the Portero Hill neighborhood and has lived for the past 20 years in the city’s Bayview District. She is the daughter of Enola Maxwell, the late activist and executive director of the Portero Hill Neighborhood House.
The San Francisco supervisor was elected to the board in 2000 and was re-elected to four-year terms in 2002 and 2006. Maxwell represents District 10 – Bayview Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley, Potrero Hill, Silver Terrace, Dog Patch, Little Hollywood and the Portola Districts.
A community activist powerhouse, Maxwell has surmounted great odds by implementing community actions that closed down the Hunters Point Power Plant in 2006. By the end of this year, the Portero Power Plant may fall to the same fate
She has always believed that local power plants were responsible for the death of her son, Rama, who died at the age of 30. He died from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that attacks the lymph glands.
