Retired judge still serving
Black helps out where he sees gaps: For Pete’s Place, nonprofits and city pools
Bruce Black has a thing for history — going back in time, combing through material, assessing the hows and whys of events that shaped the world.
He’s also got a thing for the now — seeing a need, determining a course of action, then actually doing something.
Past and present tense seem to collide perfectly in the form of a wry, sorta/ kinda retired lawyer and judge; a guy whose commitment to his community stretched far past the courtroom and into the streets of Santa Fe. The result? Black is one of The New Mexican’s
10 Who Made a Difference for 2023.
Just before midday on a Friday, you can spot him making meals at the Interfaith Community Shelter at Pete’s Place, along with five or six of his friends who scour the cupboards there and see what can be fixed for some of the city’s homeless.
“Right now, the cooler’s broken, which is a disaster,” he grumbles. “So I’m trying to get that fixed.”
Such a response, says shelter Executive Director Korina Lopez, is typical of Black, whose culinary skills are dependent on whatever’s available in the pantry.
“It’s ‘What do we have? Now, what can we make?’ ” she says.
Even at 76, Judge Fix-It’s penchant for volunteerism doesn’t just end in the kitchen. In nonprofit boardrooms and even in city swimming pools, he’s given of his time and talent, whether it was helping to start the Santa Fe Community Foundation or serving as a lifeguard at Genoveva Chavez Community Center and Bicentennial and Salvador Perez pools.
“As far as I know, he’s always been committed to provide help wherever he sees the need,” says one of Black’s 10 Who nominators, former U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman. “He sort of takes the initiative to make things better in the community.”
Black, whose legal résumé is the stuff most lawyers can only dream of — successful career in private practice; member of the state Court of Appeals from 1991-96; U.S. District Court judge from 1996-2017 — probably could have simply written checks or marshaled help from well-heeled friends to help alleviate others’ suffering.
Instead, Black rolled up his sleeves. As
far back as the 1980s, he played a role in First Presbyterian Church’s efforts to feed the homeless each week. Then, he branched out: He also began volunteering at St. Elizabeth Shelter. There were other efforts along the way, including projects with Habitat for Humanity and the Lions Club, and later, the Santa Fe Network for Immigrant Justice and the Santa Fe Dreamers Project.
His is an interesting life, even in retirement, where he keeps his fingers in the law and even got a master’s degree in history later in life to teach the subject. But whether he was working for the government, for himself or no one in particular, the wish to help others was always there.
Black, who’s as direct as a declarative sentence, doesn’t humble-pie his way out of a conversation about his good works. You ask, he answers.
“I think, yeah, you feel better about yourself,” he responds when asked whether his volunteerism makes him feel good. “You’ve gotta be doing something to give back.”
Like many in his generation, Black has seen the transformation of pain in America — from contained skid row areas like those he saw as a kid growing up in Detroit, to almost every street corner in towns of every size, including Santa Fe. He’s considered the background of the issue; examined it from every angle, including close-up as he fixes lunch at Pete’s Place.
“Well, I think there are two things,” he says. “One, there’s a serious problem with mental health. We used to have much better treatment and had some interest in helping. Now, I think there’s virtually none.
“And two, the drugs have gotten a lot worse. You know, there was always Muscatel and you could always get marijuana and horse [heroin] and some other stuff in Detroit if you wanted. And now you try fentanyl and you either ... you’re dead after the second time.”
Scaling that mountain of trouble isn’t easy. But if history tells Black anything, it’s that people find a way, whether it’s through intellect, muscle or just plain persistence. He doesn’t say it, but maybe that’s his gift: just grinding toward a better world, one day at a time.
His son, Andrew Black, says one of his father’s gifts is to take the world around him — what’s
happened in the past, in the present and, maybe, the future — and channel them, without pretense, into helping people. The younger Black recalls holidays spent with elderly guests Bruce had just met; people who didn’t have family, or anyone. He remembers the nights at Pete’s Place when father and son would check in guests at the door (no easy task) to make sure they would be OK in the shelter.
“For him, fundamentally it’s using whatever talents you have for a bigger stream of public service,” Andrew Black says. “Yes, sometimes that’s being a federal judge, but so is working at the shelter, coaching Little League, [working with] the Lions Club, being part of church. That’s the consistent thread. As I look back, I see where it’s the deeper desire to use your abilities look greatest good.”
In all, not a bad history to learn from.