FACING LIST OF PROBLEMS, CAIRO WON'T SURRENDER

Cairo, where two of the nation's mightiest rivers converge, has a storied past. More recently, the town's history is troubled. Still, through crisis after crisis, Cairo has shown a resilience, a gritty resolve in encountering bad times. Established as a town in 1854 and weathering some difficult stretches, Cairo should not be underestimated in working toward a better future.

At the southern tip of Illinois, Cairo once was a thriving community; its population in 1920 was 15,203 and possibilities abounded. In the course of the next seven decades, the town's fortunes soured. Only about 4,000 people live in Cairo today. Problems facing the town are not difficult to discern. From the 1960s, the community carries a legacy of racial division. In the late 1980s, a study revealed that Cairo had a 30 percent rate of unemployment, while 32 percent of the households had no automobile and 18 percent had no telephone. At the time of the study, the largest source of income in the Cairo was welfare.

Steadily, Cairo has seen public services, such as health care facilities, disappear. Town officials recently sought state assistance to combat drug problems and the violence they stimulated. In some ways, Cairo seems isolated from the rest of Illinois; the 242 miles between the town and Springfield seems much farther.

All of this distress seems to belie Cairo's gifts, geographical and otherwise. Where two great waterways intersect, commerce should bloom. In addition, an interstate runs past this community, with all its traffic potential, and three nearby bridges connect the town's residents to neighboring states. Cairo's river and Civil War heritage lends itself to tourism trade.

Within this context, a great many people in Cairo are working hard to better this small community. Citizens have spoken out against the intrusion of drugs in Cairo. Townspeople using the designation Operation Enterprise took it upon themselves to save Fort Defiance Park after the state abandoned it in recent years. During the most recent travail, after a white police officer shot an unarmed black man to death, city officials (led with great energy by Mayor James Wilson) took steps to heal the community, keeping citizens informed and trying to keep societal divisions from widening.

People of Cairo know their problems are numerous and that the road to resolving them will be a difficult one. Still, there is not an attitude of surrender exuded; many of the citizens there seem willing to do the work necessary to make Cairo a better place to live. That is the sort of spirit that makes a "town" into a "community." The people of Cairo are to be commended for their fortitude.