Billy McCall, former Nassau EOC leader, dies at 84

Billy McCall made a career out of doing what came naturally — giving back to family, friends and people in need in Freeport and beyond.

“Anything that was needed in the community, he tried to be a part of it to help other people,” said his sister Lenore Sharpe, 69, of Freeport.

McCall, a community activist and a former deputy director of the Nassau County Economic Opportunity Commission, died of heart failure in Villa Rica, Georgia, on March 15, his daughter Tiffany Carroll said. He was 84.

Throughout McCall’s career, he fought for the cause of civil rights, speaking out against the injustice he saw growing up in Freeport, his daughter, 38, said.

McCall saw “a lot of segregation and how Black people were being treated and he wanted to make a change and impact the community in a positive way,” Carroll said.

Sharpe said her brother was inspired by watching their mother, a community activist who volunteered to make sure their neighbors and friends were registered to vote. 

Born Jan. 18, 1938, in North Carolina to Althea and James McCall, McCall was the oldest of three siblings. At age 12, McCall and his family moved to Freeport.

After McCall graduated from Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina with a degree in social science in 1960, he returned to Freeport, where he sought to do work in the community.

In April 1967, McCall started working as the director for the Freeport Economic Opportunity Commission. In 1968, then EOC CEO John L. Kearse appointed McCall as the deputy director of operations and McCall worked there for the next 37 years.

Enrique Gomez reported to McCall when he started at the EOC as a community organizer in 1976. Gomez, who is set to retire at the end of the month as director of the community action program services, said the two became close but in the office McCall was all business with him.

“From the door outside, we were like brothers,” Gomez said. “He was concerned about me, my family. He was very kind and humble.”

When Eric Poulson started working as a youth worker and organizer in 1996, he said McCall would tell colleagues “don’t lose sight of the community.” 

Poulson, who is now the CEO of the EOC said: “He was all about parity and equality for the low-income families that resided throughout Nassau County.”

McCall wasn't afraid to speak up when he believed policies were unfair.

While working at the EOC in 1983, after officials at SUNY at Old Westbury created a new policy requiring a 75% high school average for admission unless the applicant has a special skill or experience, McCall called the change “a racist move, pure and simple” that denied minority students an education.

In 1997, a coalition of community groups headed by the Nassau EOC rallied against county legislators for cutting the anti-poverty group's budget, with McCall saying the cuts were a “blatant attack" on the agency's youth programs.

In 2004, McCall retired from the EOC and in 2005, he moved to Georgia to be closer to family.

In addition to Sharpe and Carroll, McCall is survived by his wife of 52 years, Yvonne McCall, and children Rhonda Cherry of Roosevelt; Brenda Green of Atlanta, Georgia; Vaughan McCall of Roosevelt; Darren McCall of Atlanta, Georgia; Donna Childress of Stone Mountain, Georgia; Chanel McCall of Douglasville, Georgia; and son-in-law Karim Carroll of Hiram, Georgia. 

McCall was cremated. A memorial celebration will take place June 18 in Hempstead.