Lloyd Mitchell Burstein, 87; Aircraft Radar Expert

Lloyd Mitchell Burstein, 87, a retired physicist with the Federal Aviation Administration, died March 7 of pneumonia at Inova Fairfax Hospital. He was a longtime Vienna resident before moving to Sterling four years ago.

Mr. Burstein was born in Granville, Ill., to Latvian parents fleeing religious persecution in the pre-World War I Baltic states. The family moved to Southern California when Mr. Burstein was a child. During the Depression, he and his four siblings grew up in a cooperative home for Jewish children called Vista del Mar. As the oldest child, he worked to keep his brothers and sisters together.

Taking night classes at the University of California at Los Angeles and working construction jobs during the day, he received his undergraduate degree in physics in 1942.

He was immediately drafted into the Army and sent to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he participated in the development of radar for aiming anti-aircraft guns. Toward the end of World War II, he was a battalion radar officer stationed on the western Pacific island of Ulithi.

After the war, Mr. Burstein moved to Washington, where he joined the Civil Aeronautics Administration, forerunner of the FAA. He worked as a systems engineer installing and calibrating radar systems that were basic components for the modern air traffic control and instrument landing systems. He also helped develop the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems (known as TCAS) that are in all commercial planes. He retired in 1983.

Mr. Burstein and his wife moved to Vienna in 1957, settling into what had been an all-black neighborhood. They didn't know it was African American when they moved in; they just liked the larger house they had purchased. Once there, they began working to integrate the public schools, in part so their young sons wouldn't have to attend all-white Flint Hill Elementary, which was farther away than all-black Louise Archer Elementary.

Mr. Burstein helped found the Higher Horizons Program, a study hall program that began in the home of civil rights activist Lillian Blackwell before it moved to Louise Archer. He also was a volunteer tutor in the program, which eventually had a hundred tutors.

He took part in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and was part of the vast audience that heard the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Mr. Burstein campaigned for Democratic candidates and was a member of the Council on Human Relations, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He also was a founder of the local chapter of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights.

An active member of the Unitarian Universalist congregations in Fairfax and Accotink, he supported Beacon House, a Unitarian Universalist inner-city ministry and learning center for children. He also created a program to raise money for charity through the sale of grocery coupons.

He received an Unsung Hero Award from the Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church in 1995 and the annual Human Rights Award from the Fairfax County Human Rights Commission in 1999.

Survivors include his wife of 53 years, Inge Hansen Burstein of Sterling; two children, Wayne Burstein of Oakton and Eric Burstein of Leonardtown; a sister; and two granddaughters.