An anti-poverty activist who helped to build one of the biggest agen­cies for the poor was laid to rest yes­ter­day. Robert Corad pushed pol­icy mak­ers in Wash­ing­ton and in Mass­a­chu­setts to help the peo­ple that Action for Boston Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment served.

From the Boston Globe, writer Adrian Walker attended the funeral.

Coard, who died last week at the age of 82, has been cel­e­brated as the guid­ing force behind Action for Boston Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment, the city’s largest and most influ­en­tial antipoverty agency.

But Coard’s friends, allies, and admir­ers gath­ered not only to cel­e­brate his life, but per­haps get a glimpse of the pri­vate and elu­sive man behind the good works.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Edward Markey, who had shared a close rela­tion­ship with Coard for many years, deliv­ered a lengthy eulogy that sought to cap­ture the scale of Coard’s influence.

He invoked Edward M. Kennedy’s famous trib­ute to his fallen brother, Robert: “a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suf­fer­ing and tried to heal it.’’

But he also remem­bered a man who struck respect, if not fear, into the elected offi­cials he called upon to do the agency’s bid­ding in Wash­ing­ton and at the State House.

“For gen­er­a­tions of Boston politi­cians … Ed Markey included, ABCD didn’t stand for Action for Boston Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment; it stood for Any­thing Bob Coard Desires,’’ Markey said.

Nation­ally, Coard helped engi­neer leg­is­la­tion nearly 30 years ago requir­ing fed­eral fund­ing for com­mu­nity action pro­grams, ensur­ing that the move­ment ABCD exem­pli­fies would sur­vive, regard­less of which party was in power.

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