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Marge Rogatz, 79, is president and chief executive of Community Advocates, a Roslyn Heights-based organization working for affordable housing. She also has worked with numerous civil rights organizations, such as the Roslyn Civil Rights Committee and the Congress of Racial Equality, in the 1960s. Today, she serves on the boards of the Long Island Community Foundation and Erase Racism.

"I grew up [in Queens and Lawrence] ... in an activist family. My brother and I grew up with friends of every color, different religions, different incomes. ... We were very fortunate ... We have a family that is interracial, ecumenical. ... It's a family that reflects the things that we've grown up believing in.

"I became very much involved in Long Island CORE [Congress of Racial Equality]. Long Island CORE's issues were things that ranged from where people were living in Riverhead. ... They were living in actual chicken houses, they were chicken coops. They were terrible. ...

"Lincoln Lynch and Irwin Quintyne and others, who were the leaders of Long Island CORE from the African-American community, and most of the people -- the migrant workers -- were people of color, needed white support. And we became part of that movement. ... But this was just part of saying that the civil rights movement isn't just down South. It's really important that we support the people down South ... but we really have to look in our communities at the housing and the education and the conditions here. ...

"Community Advocates in 1989 bought a six-apartment building in Roslyn Heights so we could say yes in my backyard, not no. We bought that building with the help of the state, and opened and ran the first apartments for homeless families in Nassau County. ...

"When you do that kind of thing, you are able to get some consolation about how far the goal is by setting some smaller ones. ... When you look at how difficult things are and how discouraging things can be, what you have to do is say, 'OK, what do you do about it?' And what you do about it is you mobilize resources. You set up collaborations that lead to effective resources, new resources and programs that can address specific issues."

-- OLIVIA WINSLOW

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