Mignon said that she was not always that involved in community fights but that she learned quickly from her experience with Cooke. When she and others in her community saw the newspaper one morning and learned about the stadium proposal near Laurel racetrack, they organized quickly. We begged and wrote letters to horsemen who owned horses at the racetrack. We sold things. Went door to door.
Cats are a good image.
They do all kinds of things against their enemies. We were prickly. We weren't going to give in, and it worked. Rayburn Smallwood, president of the Maryland City Civic Association, which joined in opposing the stadium proposal in Laurel, said his neighborhood is always watchful now. The group has since fought a proposed shelter for the homeless near a school and battled to get the District to move its delinquent juveniles away from the neighborhood.