Jane Block might be Riverside’s original “happy warrior.” As an activist for women’s rights and open space, she was said to be determined but friendly, using gentle persuasion to get her way.
And on Wednesday, as Block was feted for her 95th birthday, the retired warrior couldn’t have been happier.
People lined up to shake her hand and exchange a few words. Block’s face frequently crinkled in a pixieish smile.
The event — the Block party, as I think of it — was at the Riverside Area Rape Crisis Center, an organization she had co-founded in 1973 and which is now in its 51st year. In a sash and tiara behind a table, husband Richard by her side as he’s been for 60 years, Block was quick to turn conversations toward the crisis center and away from herself.
When I introduced myself, Block said: “Isn’t this organization wonderful? They do such great work.” Indicating the decorations for her party, she added: “And they did all this.”
After everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and she blew out a candle on a carrot cake, her favorite, Block said the best part of her birthday was having it at the Rape Crisis Center. (Which, with all respect to the center, is not exactly the Old Spaghetti Factory.)
When a woman came over to shyly introduce herself as a volunteer, Block beamed and said: “That’s wonderful!”
Block is sort of a legend around Riverside. I hadn’t met her but felt like I should. Starting in the 1970s, she was active on several fronts.
She helped lead the successful efforts to save the Santa Rosa Plateau and Box Springs Mountains from development and start the Rivers & Lands Conservancy. And she was instrumental in establishing Riverside County’s first rape hotline, the Child Care Consortium and the Inlandia Institute writing nonprofit.
Can we call this Block a cornerstone?
“I used to read about this woman in the paper and she terrified me because she did so much,” Connie Ransom told me Wednesday in Block’s presence.
After they met, Ransom stayed terrified. That’s because if Block saw Ransom at an event and headed in her direction, a request to volunteer would soon follow.
Block leaned over to me to confide: “I’m known for recruiting people.”
Jane Block blows out the candle on her 95th birthday cake Wednesday at the Riverside Area Rape Crisis Center as Karla Miranda, the operations director, takes video. Block co-founded the center in 1973 and started Riverside County’s first rape crisis hotline the next year. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, spent extended time at the party. He’d met Block in the 1980s as a recent college graduate and they hit it off, he told me.
Block educated him about issues facing women, especially teenage girls. As he began his political career, Block introduced him around to influential women, some of whom couldn’t openly support him because their husbands were Republicans.
And, Takano said, she imparted two primary lessons to succeed in politics: build relationships and find key staff members who can make things happen.
Louis Vandenberg, general manager of KUCR-FM, the UC Riverside radio station, gave Block a talk show in 1978 over some internal opposition. Titled “Women’s Place, Women’s Space,” she used the show to interview women seeking political office.
In remarks to the group, Vandenberg passed along two pearls of wisdom he’d learned from Block. One: “Give away the credit. You don’t need it.” Another: “You don’t have enemies. You just have people who need more information.”
Also at the party was Virginia Blumenthal. The Riverside criminal defense attorney in 1975 became the first woman in the Inland Empire to open her own law firm. She’s known and admired Block, a fellow pioneer, for decades.
“She has made a place for women to make changes in the community in women’s rights and environmental conservation,” Blumenthal told me. “She did it as a citizen — and was nice in doing it.”
Charles Block, the couple’s son, said his parents “are a good team” who will mark their 60th anniversary on Aug. 22. He told me a story about his mother’s activism.
In 1974, as part of a group advocating for bike lanes, Block spoke before the Riverside City Council, which at the time was made up entirely of men, and was evidently persuasive. They unanimously backed the bike lanes, to the surprise of at least one member, who said something to this effect: “I wouldn’t have voted for this if not for that damned woman.”
“Which I think was a badge of honor for her,” Charles observed. “You can be angry or you can be effective. She was never angry. She was effective. It was a good lesson.”
Adriane Lamar Snider, who became the Rape Crisis Center’s chief executive officer six years ago, had her staff research and document the center’s origins and the six women who had founded it.
From there, she got to know Block, whose home had served as a central hub for the grassroots feminist movement in Riverside.
At the Rape Crisis Center’s 50th anniversary gala last November, Block was given the first Trailblazer Award, which in the future will be known as the Jane Block Trailblazer Award.
First housed at UC Riverside, the center now has an office in a Chicago Avenue business park with 17 staff and 30 volunteers, who help more than 1,500 individuals a year and reach thousands more via outreach and education efforts.
As for Wednesday’s party, Lamar Snider said, “I wanted to do a celebration of who she is and do it at the center, so she could see the legacy she created.”
When the party slowed, Block and I talked.
She’d learned that “there was a structural bias against women” from her Catholic childhood — probably not the lesson intended — and over time realized that “society didn’t value women except as sexual appendages for males.”
She and Richard, a math professor, moved to Riverside in 1968. She began to ponder how to get things accomplished in a male-dominated society.
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“I understood I was in a minority and I had to change that if I wanted the system to work. Women needed to be in elected positions,” she said. “I looked at what needed to be done and put together some organizations.”
The Rape Crisis Center was an early effort.
“Obviously women who were raped need to be supported,” Block said, “and men needed to understand the sexual function in a different context.”
She smiled.
David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, three more crises. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on X.
