I always felt that if there's one less racist joke, one less slur, one less muttering under someone's breath, we're getting somewhere." When his grandfather died, the local newspaper called him "a good neighbor."

"That's all I want people to say about me," Greensboro attorney Henry Isaacson says in the conference room of his high-rise office, in the downtown nerve center of his hometown's commercial, cultural and political base. It is a fitting command post for an architect of the city's past and future.

In the decades since Isaacson stepped out of an Air Force uniform and began practicing law here, finding a place in the work of community and justice, some say he's already earned that 'good neighbor' status. This year, he is the recipient of Greensboro's highest award for citizenship.

"This award is given to a person who cares about people, who respects the diversity of all of us, and who initiates and supports programs and systems to help in our understanding about our evolving and diverse world," says High Point University president Nido Qubein, chairman of the committee that selected Isaacson for the 2005 Brotherhood/Sisterhood Citation Award, given by the local chapter of the National Conference for Community and Justice (formerly the National Conference of Christians and Jews).

"I think that his history of service and his record of service speaks for itself," says Qubein, a nationally renowned motivational speaker and philanthropist.

Issacson, 72, has served on numerous boards and organizations, in leadership roles in the Jaycees and Junior Chamber of Commerce, as a volunteer and chairman of NCCJ and president of the historic Temple Emanuel synagogue. He has raised money for projects such as Teen Court, a program for first-time offenders, where he volunteers as a judge.

Though hardly outdated, he is old-fashioned -- believing that family plays a big part in a person's success. Each week the Isaacson clan, including children, their spouses and the eight grandchildren, have Sunday dinner, rotating location among the homes in the family circle. After each grandchild's bat mitzvah or bar mitzvah, he and his wife Alice take just the child to Europe -- Paris and the city of that child's choosing. He served on the board of Sternberger Elementary School's PTA when his children were younger.

"I grew up learning that the important things in life are that you work hard, you give back to your community to try to make a difference and you remember your family is always there for you," his daughter Gail Bernstein says.

And that outlook doesn't hurt Isaacson in today's world because he is very much a player. He has a long client list, is often the person handling sensitive and possibly controversial cases before the City Council and the zoning board. He has played a major role in the city's effort to lure FedEx and to bring in new jobs. A member of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority board, he has logged lots of miles trying to bring in carriers.

LYNN HEYThe Henry Isaacson family gathers Sunday October 9, 2005 for a weekly family dinner in Greensboro, NC. Alice Isaacson, wife of Henry Isaacson, their son Marc Isaacson, their daughter Gail Bernstein, Henry Isaacson and grandson Drew Basile gather before the dinner. "I said, 'Henry, why on earth' ... it's not billable, needless to say," daughter-in-law Jill Wilson says. "It's not apparently recreational. Why do you want to give this kind of time and money ... it's such a huge sacrifice. He's loved it. He's always loved it. It's expanding the economy of Greensboro -- he can make himself interested in things that matter."

His was a generation that fought a war, built their own businesses and wanted to come home and make a difference. Those who know him professionally say he is reliable and effective.

"Henry is a visionary," says Ralph Shelton, who serves with Isaacson on the N.C. A&T Board of Trustees and worked alongside him at NCCJ. "He's always thinking about what can be versus what is."

Greensboro is where his grandfather, Isaac "Ike" Isaacson, a Russian immigrant, settled, opening a clothing store on South Elm Street and becoming a charter member of Temple Emanuel, which was across from First Presbyterian Church and up the street from Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. He lived just two blocks away, not far from those Jewish friends who sat near him in synagogue, and non-Jews who sat beside him in school.

"I grew up understanding that even though we worship in different faiths, we still have a lot in common," Isaacson says, recalling that his Boy Scout troop met in Holy Trinity's basement.

Isaacson's father would die while Isaacson was still in high school, but his mother wouldn't even consider his not going to college. After earning undergraduate and law degrees at UNC-Chapel Hill, he served as an officer in the Air Force, later returning to Greensboro, with three children and an offer to join one of the city's law firms. It was his college sweetheart and then wife, the former Alice Feder, who had talked him into going to law school, and worked to help pay his way.

The late Arnold Schiffman and Dr. Sidney LeBauer suggested that he get involved with the interfaith NCCJ. "It brings people together and it does good things here," they told him. He volunteered for 16 years, serving twice as chairman. It was during those years that the annual dinners came about to raise money for the program to fight bigotry.

NCCJ's programs range from Green Circle, a program designed to help children develop a sense of self-worth and an appreciation and awareness of human differences, to Anytown, a weeklong camp in Blowing Rock that gives an in-depth look at what teenagers of different ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds have in common with one another.

"You have to be taught to hate people," says Isaacson, now the group's chairman emeritus. "You aren't born with that. I always felt that if there's one less racist joke, one less slur, one less muttering under someone's breath, we're getting somewhere."

LYNN HEYHenry Isaacson, watches a baseball game with his granddaughter, Sarah Isaacson and daughter in law Jill Wilson Sunday October 9, 2005 before a family dinner. Isaacson has been awarded the 2005 NCCJ award, the highest citizen award in the city. Greensboro had a large population of Jews and the first Jewish settlers built schools, hospitals and YMCAs and assisted in erecting churches. In Greensboro, Jews were accepted into country clubs and belonged to the Kiwanis and Rotary clubs as early as the 1930s and 1940s.

Most recently, Isaacson was considered the linchpin in an effort to move forward the stalled construction of a civil rights museum in downtown Greensboro.

It was at the time that Woolworth's Department Store announced it would close that Isaacson, sitting in then-City Councilman Earl Jones' office discussing a rezoning case, lamented the fate of the historic building across the street.

The building, which was to be put up for sale, is where four black A&T freshmen sat down at the whites-only lunch counter and demanded service in 1960. Their demands sparked the sit-in movement that would sweep the country and help rid the South of Jim Crow laws.

"I said, did you read the paper this morning?" Isaacson recalls. "I said it's a sin that building is going to be torn down -- it's a monument to history."

Not long after, Jones and others would create the nonprofit Sit-In Movement and come up with financing to secure the store. In recent years the project had languished, causing Isaacson to take on the role of bridge builder, in bringing together the museum's board and A&T to put more muscle into the project.

"I shave every morning and I look at myself in the mirror and I don't think I'd be able to look at myself if I didn't try to help see it through," Isaacson says.

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Selected past and current civic and community work: board member, International Civil Rights Museum and Center; trustee, N.C. A&T chairman, Piedmont Triad Airport Authority; chairman, NCCJ Regional Board, 1975--1991, currently board member emeritus; member, Greensboro Human Relations Commission; board member, Greensboro Chamber of Commerce; board member, Greensboro Merchant's Association; member and chairman, Greensboro Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, 1979-1988; member, Guilford College Board of Visitors; trustee, Weatherspoon Arts Foundation at UNCG; board member, Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art; president, vice president and secretary, Temple Emanuel.

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