Elbert Ransom Jr. has received the 10th annual Emmett W. Cock Jr. Social Justice Award. Sponsored by United College Ministries in Northern Virginia, the award recognizes individuals or organizations that have devoted themselves to social justice.

Ransom, a retired Alexandria city ..........available from the Washington Post Achieves.

It was 1954. He was a 17-year-old lad, fresh off the train in Montgomery, Ala. He'd left his hometown in New Orleans with a Sears & Roebuck trunk, a suitcase and a shoe box filled with his mother's fried chicken and pound cake to tide him over. He was headed to Alabama State College for Negroes on a scholarship awarded for his sweet baritone.

But before he got out of the train station, he got a taste of..........available from the Washington Post Achieves.

When 10th-grader Maria Montiel has lunch in the cafeteria at T.C. Williams High School, she often sees the best and worst of living in Alexandria a diverse group of students self-segregated by group.

The Latino kids sit at one table. The black kids are at another. The Asian kids sit together and the Middle Eastern kids stick to themselves.

"In elementary school, all the kids sit together and nobody cares," the 15-year-old sophomore told a group of nearly 600 ..........available from the Washington Post Achieves.

In the 1960s and 1970s, they were called the Alexandria
Ministerial Alliance, a group that helped the city get through the throes of school desegregation and the creation of public housing.

This year, the group has been revitalized and reorganized by city officials as the Alexandria Ecumenical Clergy. And the group -- almost 70 ministers and rabbis -- have started to meet, first to build bridges linking each other and their congregations and secondly to begin tackling the problems of..........available from the Washington Post Achieves.

Spurred by national initiatives to explore racial reconciliation, Alexandria, one of the most diverse cities in the country, will launch a local dialogue on race relations.

In an unanimous vote last week, the City Council approved a resolution to develop an ongoing program to engage residents in a discussion of issues concerning race and diversity and to work on projects to make Alexandria a better-integrated community.

"On the surface, all may seem well, but under the ..........available from the Washington Post Achieves.

Inside the Alexandria Adult Detention Center, Elbert Ransom Jr. greeted an inmate with a hug.

"Bless your heart," Ransom said to Stanley Ellison, who is doing time for distribution of cocaine. "I'm looking forward to your getting out."

Other inmates began to gather around, curious about the well-dressed man who seemed so happy to see a convict.

Ransom runs a mentoring program through an organization called the Potomac Community Development Corp., which is ..........available from the Washington Post Achieves.