Vola Lawson, Alexandria city manager, turned around tumult and advocated for minorities Mrs. Lawson grew up during the Depression in Atlanta, where she was raised by grandparents she described as "enlightened and progressive." Her grandmother had been a suffragist, and her grandfather had been an Atlanta school board member and activist friend of the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., father of the civil rights leader. Mrs. Lawson said that when she and her husband, a clinical psychologist, settled in Alexandria in the 1960s, the "good ol" boy" system and segregationist Byrd political machine dominated Virginia politics. The Lawsons, who were white, became involved in civic affairs, joining the Urban League and picketing the city government when a Confederate flag was flown outside Alexandria City Hall and when local businesses refused to hire or cater to blacks. "When the police came, they were laughing along with the people who were harassing us," she recalled. In 1970, she became a campaign organizer for Alexandria's first black council member since Reconstruction, Ira L. Robinson. Mrs. Lawson joined the city government in 1971 and over the years helped oversee anti-poverty and housing programs. As assistant city manager for housing starting in 1981, she was credited with initiating more than $100 million in programs to aid low-income families and senior citizens. In 1985, Mayor Charles E. Beatley Jr. and the City Council appointed Mrs. Lawson city manager, a position in which she oversaw the daily operations of a city then of 108,000. Today, Alexandria's population is about 140,000. She was the first female city manager in Alexandria and among the first women to run a local government in the Washington area. She took the job at one of the most turbulent moments in the city's history. The police force was in disarray, there were open tensions among new- and old-guard council members, and Alexandria was facing a mounting crisis of illegal drug trafficking. "I feel like I've been named a piñata at a piñata party," Mrs. Lawson said at the time. Police chief Charles T. Strobel was entangled in investigations and lawsuits stemming from a drug probe he had allegedly cut short. Strobel, who resigned in 1987, was eventually acquitted of all charges that arose in his decade-long tenure, but Mrs. Lawson said the lawsuits affected the city's ability to indemnify itself. It was a slow climb back. Part of her work, Mrs. Lawson said, was to keep Alexandria out of the headlines. She instituted a "no-surprise policy" requiring department heads to send daily memos alerting her to any problems that might explode publicly. Her management style could be brusque. "I am impatient with work that is not well reasoned," she once told The Washington Post. But she believed tight control was needed to steer a listing city.