Julia Hines-Harris
Julia Hines-Harris
The thing about Julia Hines-Harris was her presence.

She wasn't overbearing. She wasn't the loudest person in the room. But when she spoke, people listened. She was able to command a room just by entering it. She was a natural leader.

And with her passing last week at age 72, our community has lost one of its great leaders, a person who, by her hard work and natural skills, became an inspirational leader. She was a mentor to countless city kids who, being her students, were her kids. She understood what it took to be successful and generously passed that knowledge to others.

She preached about the importance of education, about the need for people to dedicate themselves to being students for life. Learning, she always said, was the key to everything.

She showed by example how education could free a person and open up limitless opportunity. She was born in York and grew up here, on West Princess Street. She was not a child of privilege.

She was able to go to college and become a teacher. She continued her education after earning her bachelor's degree. She earned a master's and then, at age 45, a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. She demonstrated the importance of always learning, of always being a student.

She was an innovator. When the late insurance magnate Arthur Glatfelter Jr.


proposed a program to connect middle-school students with members of the business community, she made it happen and Project Connections was born. While she was a teacher and middle-school principal, she required parents of disruptive students to spend the day in the classroom - even if she had to go to their homes and get them.

She was unflinching in her loyalty to her school and her city.

"She was always about York, good and bad, through the riots, which we were in, through different changes in the city," said Richard Muldrow Jr., one of her two sons. "It wasn't about her. It was about the district, the families and students."

For all of that, it was her presence that made her great, the way she could command a room, the way she could get people to follow her.

Bobby Simpson, executive director of the Crispus Attucks Community Center, who grew up in Dr. Harris' neighborhood, said she was a no-nonsense person and that she always said what she meant. She always, he said, told the truth whether people wanted to hear it or not.

She had been in failing health in recent years and hadn't been as involved in the community as she had been.

Her presence has been - and will be - missed.


According to the Boulding Mortuary website, funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. June 28 at William Penn Senior High School. Viewing will be held from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.