Luana Robinson, former district leader and community activist, died on Oct. 12 at her home on 154th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. She was 87. The cause of death was heart failure, said her son, Jay Robinson.

Robinson, who was a model early in her career, was the first woman of color to make it to the cover of a national magazine, said her son, Jay Robinson. She is best known for her efforts for the Harlem community. She served as co-district leader, an unpaid elected official that performs a series of duties for his or her political party, in the 71st Assembly District in the 1970s, along with David Dinkins. Later, she became 7A administrator for a building on 154th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, the building she bought in 1984. In the 1990s, she mobilized a group of women to create a garden on the site of a former gas station at 150th Street between St. Nicholas and Convent Avenues.

“Luana was a real advocate for our community,” said Jean Spruill, Robinson’s friend and across-the-street neighbor. “She wanted to bring a taste of downtown uptown.”

Robinson was born on Dec. 13, 1921, to Cape Verdean immigrants in Providence, R.I., the middle child, between an older sister and younger brother. Her mother died when she was a child and she was raised by her father and stepmother. Robinson could not finish high school but was self-educated. Robinson would say that she educated herself by reading the Encyclopedia Britannica, the dictionary and The New York Times, Spruill said.

Robinson moved to New York when she was 17 and took up modeling. Here, she met her husband, Jimmie Robinson, a bass player for such jazz musicians as Duke Ellington. While her husband traveled, Robinson took up antique collecting and started an antique shop on 149th Street and Broadway. When her son was born, she would take him to the store with her. After a while, she gave up the shop and started an interior design business called Luana Interiors, before she became involved in politics.

Jay Robinson said his parents separated in the early 1980s and officially divorced in the ’90s.

Spruill said that Robinson loved music, especially Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, and was “into the classics big time.” Jay Robinson said one of his childhood memories was of his mother listening to the popular singer O.C. Smith.

She liked going to Broadway shows and coffee houses in midtown, Spruill said. As a young person, Spruill said, Robinson would like to go to supper clubs. She enjoyed dressing well. “Even her blue jeans were creased,” Spruill said. “She had the ways like a rich white woman.” She liked to play cards and write letters of complaint, Jay Robinson said.

Luana Robinson was a disciplinarian, her friend said. She was “hard on black people,” said Spruill, explaining that she would always want them to “do better than what they were doing.” She was insistent that people voted and would say they shouldn’t complain if they don’t vote. She pushed her son to do better, said Spruill, adding, “She wanted everybody to do well.”

Friends speaking at Robinson’s funeral talked about her determination, her desire to help others and her organizational skills.

“She used to police the street,” Spruill said. The first time they met in 1985, Robinson had been fighting a drug-dealer and Spruill had followed with a gun to support her. “Luana went up against a lot of people,” she said.

Spruill described Robinson as “comical.” “She was at a town meeting with Mayor Koch and she got really angry and turned her dress up and told him to kiss her butt,” Spruill said.

“My mother never really held her tongue,” said Jay Robinson, adding that as a child he found that embarrassing. “As a young kid, I didn’t like the attention drawn to me.”

When Robinson was around nobody threw garbage or honked unnecessarily, said Daryl Williams who lives in her neighborhood. He called her “a tough mom and a tough friend,” in his eulogy.

“She had a temper,” said Jay Robinson, but she was “also very loving.” She “stressed happy manners,” he said, and as long as he cleaned his room, she wasn’t strict at all.

Robinson wanted a statue dedicated to women to be placed in the garden she created at Convent Avenue. Jay Robinson is in the process of setting up a fund to see his mother’s wish realized.

In addition to her son, Robinson is survived by two grandchildren, Nicole, 15, and Steven, 13, and her dog, Baby.