Pilot Media - African American Today 2015

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Civil rights through the years THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT | 01.28.15

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ven though the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial discrimination in public spaces, it wasn’t the first such act needed, or the last.

The following year, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed poll taxes and literacy tests and gave African Americans the safeguards needed to vote.

This legislation granted African Americans access they’d been denied. It was sure progress, to be celebrated.

But people at the heart of the battle will tell you such legislation has not guaranteed equality. That there are still battles to fight.

That inequality exists in forms large and small.

And so in this issue of African American Today, we look back on the struggle for civil rights in this region and in this country, and we look at those battles that are still being waged.

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activism through the years

Protestors block the intersection of St. Paul’s Boulevard and City Hall Avenue in Norfolk during a Dec. 12 rally against police shootings.

The changing methods of activism

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964

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The Voting Rights Act of 1965

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The case that started school desegregation locally 7 Some local faces of civil rights

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Protestors take to streets – and social media

By Gabriella Souza

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A timeline of some major events

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Black History Month events 15

about the section REPORTERS

Elisabeth Hulette Alison Johnson Cherise M. Newsome Gabriella Souza Denise M. Watson DESIGNER

Lisa Merklin EDITOR

Judy Le ADVERTISING C O O R D I N ATO R

Michelle Morris-Walls

The Virginian-Pilot

Fifty years ago, fighting for civil rights meant marches, protests and civil disobedience. Supporters of voting rights and the ending of Jim Crow laws traveled to Washington and Birmingham to participate in large-scale demonstrations and faced beatings, jail, even death.

In Norfolk, protestors flooded main thoroughfares, like Granby and Church streets, and staged sit-ins at downtown department store lunch counters.

Now, protests and marches still go on, though some would argue that they are more symbolic.

But those seeking to condemn acts of injustice have another place to turn – social media.

Protestors now use Twitter and Facebook to document racial inequality and unite others behind campaigns. Think about the “I can’t breathe” signs, hashtags

and shirts related to the death of a New York man after a police officer put him in a choke hold, or the “die-in” protests across the country in response to the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown last year by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. The public outcry surrounding these events has put them at the forefront of a new civil rights movement. It’s called national attention to complaints of police brutality and racial disparities – issues that stayed on the sidelines in the past, said Dori Maynard, president of the Maynard Institute, a journalism organization dedicated to promoting diversity.

Social media has allowed different voices to come forward, in addition to the more mainstream groups who have typically controlled the conversation, she said.

“I’m not sure that the Trayvon Martin case would have gotten the attention it did without Twitter,” Maynard said, speaking of

the unarmed Florida teenager who was killed by a neighborhood-watch coordinator.

Police had initially released the coordinator, George Zimmerman, after questioning, but a special prosecutor reopened the case weeks later after immense public outcry, much of it on social media sites. Even professional athletes from teams like the Miami Heat posted photos with their sweatshirt hoods covering their heads, as Martin was wearing a hoodie when he was killed.

“For better or for worse, Twitter has meant that conversations that were easy to ignore or dismiss are now in the public eye,” Maynard said.

Brenda Andrews, publisher of Norfolk’s historically African American newspaper The New Journal and Guide, said she sees a need for improvement when utilizing social media to push civil rights issues forward. Accuracy is always a concern as anyone can

appear to become an authority just by posting, she said.

Plus, groups that could benefit by using technologies have been slow to do so, particularly national civil rights groups that headed up the charge for reform previously.

That leads to another problem, Andrews said, with the fight for civil rights today: a lack of leadership. During the 1960s, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others had a long-term strategy for how they would change laws and society.

“You expected and prepared to be arrested,” she said, as that was a large part of the passive resistance King and others championed.

Now, protests are more spontaneous and are usually a reaction to events like Trayvon Martin’s death. But there doesn’t seem to be a long-term goal in mind, Andrews said.

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Two dozen students from Old Dominion College, Virginia State College and Booker T. Washington High School demonstrated against segregation on May 12, 1963, marching in downtown Norfolk.

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“Once the excitement is over, all the hype is wasted,” she said.

Alveta Green, a former Norfolk School Board and City Council member, said she noticed a lull in protests in the decades after the civil rights movement.

But in recent years, she’s watched a resurgence, with local response to issues around the nation.

Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson sparked a protest that blocked traffic in Virginia Beach as well as a vigil at Mount Trashmore.

They seem different to her from those she experienced in the 1960s, like the march her husband, Walter, helped organize that walked down Church Street, she said. Walter and others wore green togas as a way of promoting voting rights as part of democracy. Alveta stayed home with bail money, just in case.

Like Andrews, she said she feels that current marches and protests are

called to draw attention to a single event, not a greater problem.

But like those in the 1960s, they’re a reminder that inequality is still present.

“It’s getting attention,” Green said, “but it’s still not enough.”

Carl Wright, the head of the Virginia Beach chapter of the NAACP, agrees there’s a need for protests now and in the future.

Social media has helped to advance causes, he said, but not significantly because people have become complacent and don’t realize that disparities, particularly economic, still exist. “ We need a broader group of people, not just the same groups, protesting,” Wright said. “The only way to do that is to keep the message out there.”

Gabriella Souza, 757-222-5117, gabriella.souza@pilotonline. com

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legislating equality

1964 act confirmed commitment

By Cherise M. Newsome The Virginian-Pilot

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 helped erase that sometimes-visible, sometimes-invisible partition of “For Colored Only.”

The act, signed into law in July 1964

by President Lyndon B. Johnson, outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and facilities as well as in voter registration and employment.

It provided legal teeth to take a bigger bite out of discrimination, historians and civil rights experts say.

Business owners or organizations receiving federal dollars could now face litigation and tougher sanctions for discriminating against blacks and other minority groups.

The 1964 act didn’t solve all problems of racial injustice, but it propelled the civil rights movement and bolstered the federal government’s role in addressing discrimination.

The act succeeded several others that also aimed to end racial discrimination against blacks.

Since the Civil War, Congress enacted Civil Rights Acts in 1866, 1870, 1871 and 1875, in order to enforce the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, according to Eric Claville, an assistant professor and pre-law adviser in the Department of Political Science and History at Hampton University.

Those amendments freed slaves, made them citizens and gave them the right to vote.

“Moreover, Congress also enacted the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, in part, to give teeth to the prior amendments and secure voting for blacks,” he said.

The 1964 law provided reassurance of the federal government’s commitment, especially in the aftermath of the assassination of civil rights supporter President John F. Kennedy, Claville said.

“The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is considered the most important and comprehensive piece of legislation passed and enacted by Congress that protects the rights of all Americans, primarily former slaves, in all facets of life,” Claville said.

The country was in disarray with Kennedy’s death and the later assassination of civil rights activist Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he said.

Civil activism and social unrest contributed to the law’s formation and impact, according to Cassandra

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In this July 2, 1964, file photo, President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act in the East Room of the White House in Washington.

Newby-Alexander, a history professor at Norfolk State University.

“Pressures from the civil rights movement, America’s Cold War and public condemnation of the increased public displays of municipal and state government-sponsored violence against civil rights activists resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” she said. “Both of these major legislative acts temporarily broke the pattern of legislative discrimination and inequity.”

For all that the law has accomplished, there’s still more to do, activists say.

Discrimination remains but isn’t as overt as before, Claville said. That’s why activists, attorneys and others must continue fighting for justice.

The Hampton Roads area, along with others, can help alleviate discrimination by improving access to government contracts, jobs and education, especially higher education, for traditionally disadvantaged groups, Claville said.

“You also have those schools, schools that are more selective, they’re still overwhelmingly white,” he said. “People will say ‘standards’ but there’s still a level of discrimination and the numbers show it.”

Claville said education is critical because it helps open the door for social mobility and wealth. Equality also promotes economic development be-

cause residents and businesses will be attracted to the region if there’s more opportunity, he said.

“The United States of America is a place where dreams can come true and the impossible becomes possible.

Through our history of slavery, Civil War, Jim Crow, segregation and civil unrest, we continue to be a model for people working together to achieve greatness,” he said. “ This includes protecting the rights of all.”

Efforts to fight discrimination, such as Affirmative Action and federal grant programs that support historically black colleges and universities, have been partially successful, according to Newby-Alexander.

“Within a few years of implementation, however, Affirmative Action was under fire with severe limitations implemented by the increasingly conservative Supreme Court,” she said.

There have been additional civil rights success in terms of marriage equality, she said. For example, same-sex marriage became legal in Virginia late last year. But issues of equality in salaries, hiring, as well as mortgages, bank loans and insurance – regardless of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation – still linger, she said.

Cherise M. Newsome, 757-446-2378, cherise.newsome@ pilotonline.com

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voting rights

Struggle lingered after approval

By Denise M. Watson The Virginian-Pilot

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Activist Evelyn Butts, seen outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 25, 1966, was among five black Virginians who asked the high court to declare the state’s poll tax unconstitutional.

Tommy Bennett remembers walking with his grandmother, Pearlie Hairston, into a Danville polling station in 1966. Barricades held back angry whites who spat at blacks like Bennett and his grandmother, who was voting for the first time.

“Grandma, didn’t you say that spitting on people was nasty?” Bennett recalled asking his grandmother.

Bennett, now 59, coordinates voterregistration drives. “ ‘Yes, Tommy,’ ” he recalls her replying, “ ‘but I’m going to vote today, regardless.’ ” The year before, President Lyndon B. Johnson had signed the Voting Rights Act into law, and it is still considered one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation ever passed. It banned the use of literacy tests and poll taxes in federal elections – hurdles employed in Virginia – and provided oversight in areas with low voter turnout among people of voting age. Places like ru-

ral Danville, about four hours west of Norfolk.

The law provided the safeguards people like Hairston needed to feel safe to vote.

“There were people out there who were fighting you, the KKK who frightened you if you wanted to vote,” said Bennett, who still lives in Danville but often works in Hampton Roads. “There were people who knew, “If I vote today, I might lose my job tomorrow.’ ’’ The VRA was designed for states like Virginia, which had become notorious for denying equal rights to its African American citizens. Virginia was one of seven states that, under the act, had to get preclearance from the Department of Justice or federal courts to make any voting changes after the act went into effect. Three more states were added to the preclearance list in 1975.

A 2006 report by The Leadership Conference, a national coalition of civil- and human-rights organizations, suggested that Virginia has made progress in the years since the act’s

passage. For example, it highlighted the election of the state’s first black governor, L. Douglas Wilder, in 1990.

But most progress, it stated, came primarily at the instigation of the Department of Justice or federal courts challenging Virginia’s voting procedures, redistricting plans and structure of some of its elected bodies.

The struggle for voting rights in Virginia began as soon as black men received them, in 1870 with the ratification of the 15th Amendment. The state required separate registration books for whites and blacks, which allowed for lists of black voters to “get misplaced,” delaying and sometimes preventing their voting. Other legal obstacles followed.

Virginia instituted a poll tax that had to be paid six months before an election and that had to be paid up current for the previous three years.

For prospective voters who could not afford the tax, an “understanding clause” was offered that allowed applicants instead to give a reasonable See next page

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Continued from previous page

interpretation of any section of the new state constitution. But the majority of African Americans were illiterate in post-Civil War America. In addition, all-white boards would define what reasonable interpretation meant.

Norfolk attorney Alfred P. Thom, a delegate to the 1901-1902 Constitutional Convention, was frank during debates about overlooking whites who also couldn’t read or write.

“I would not expect an impartial administration of the clause,” he said.

The state exempted all Civil War r veterans and their sons from any off the requirements.

Jim Crow laws also began spread-ing throughout the South, which fur-ther stymied black progress in edu-cational, social and economic arenas. s.

As the decades passed, some southhern states dropped the poll tax reequirement, but Virginia held on until il Norfolk seamstress Evelyn Butts filed a lawsuit in 1963. In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Butts and declared the tax illegal.

Even after other Jim Crow restrictions faded, the years of intimidation left scars. In the late 1970s, Bennett worked in senior services in Pittsylvania County and saw them in his clients.

The front page of The Virginian-Pilot on August 7, 1965, the day after the 1964 Voting Rights Act was signed.

“People were afraid that if they registered that they couldn’t get their food stamps or that their social security checks would be cut off,” he said.

“Those are things they’d heard over

tthe years from their employers.”

But the passage of the VRA produced immediate results. d By the end of 1965, a quarter of a million new black voters had been m rregistered, one-third by federal examiners. By the end of 1966, only 4 a out of the 13 southern states had fewo er than 50 percent of African-Amerie cans registered to vote. The VRA was c rreadopted and strengthened in 1970, 1975, and 1982. In 2013, however, the 1 Supreme Court struck down part of S tthe VRA, including the preclearance rrequirement for jurisdictions includiing Virginia.

Bennett said he works year-round iin elections and voter registration campaigns because he believes votc iing is an important right. Voter education, such as knowing what to take c tto the polls and how to vet candidates, iis just as important as registering.

Bennett said recent news events have highlighted the importance of voting. He cited changes in samev ssex marriage legislation that have come as people turned to the polls to express their support for it.

“If you don’t like what your mayor is doing, or your prosecutor is doing, you can remove them,” he said, “They serve at the pleasure of your vote.”

Denise M. Watson, 757-446-2504, denise.watson@pilotonline.com

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By Denise M. Watson The Virginian-Pilot

In May 1956, 65 AfricanAmerican students and 31 parents and guardians filed paperwork with the United States District Court for the Eastern District with what seemed like a simple request: They wanted to attend the schools closest to them.

But it was not simple.

Those schools were for white students only. Even though the Supreme Court had ruled two years earlier that segregation in public schools was wrong, the plaintiffs would learn how difficult integration would be to achieve – and maintain.

The lawsuit took on the name of the first student listed alphabetically – Leola Pearl Beckett – and would go on almost 20 years until the courts declared that the suit accomplished its goal.

“It reflects a long struggle where the school board used every means, every delay, every subterfuge to maintain the old system,” said Charles Ford, a professor of history at Norfolk State University and co-author of the book, “Elusive Equality: Desegregation and Resegregation of Norfolk’s Public Schools.”

“The irony was there was integration in Norfolk Public Schools for a short period of time … but that has changed.”

The lawsuit came after other appeals for action did not work.

I n 195 5, the Norfolk branch of the NAACP threatened to sue if the school board did not respond to the Supreme Court’s mandate ordering states to desegregate with “all deliberate speed.”

Two months later, 233 black parents in neighborhoods such as Bollingbrook, near Wards Corner, and Norview, where there were no black schools, petitioned the school board for an “imme-

Leola Beckett, 1958

diate” end to segregation.

NAACP branches in Newport News, Isle of Wight County and Prince Edward County also submitted petitions.

The Norfolk school board looked to the state for guidance. That November, the legislature proposed changes to the state constitution that eventually became law. One change allowed use of public funds for private schools, which allowed state tuition grants for white parents who did not want their children to attend integrated schools.

In 1956, Leola Beckett, et al v. The School Board of the City of Norfolk was filed.

In February 1957, U.S. District judge Walter E. Hoffman ruled that Norfolk had to desegregate that fall. The school board appealed, and parents returned to Hoffman. In May 1958, he again ordered the school system to integrate that fall.

The board continued to fight, giving tests and interviews for applying black students. More than 150 students went through the process, and all were refused.

Then NAACP attorneys used Leola Beckett and took the school board to court.

Hoffman stated that it could not refuse all of the students.

The school board picked 17.

In response in September, the governor closed six of Norfolk’s schools for five months, until courts ruled in other lawsuits that the closure violated the students’ rights. But the Beckett lawsuit would still be necessary.

In the coming years, the NAACP and the Justice Department filed numerous complaints because the

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school desegregation

LEOLA BECKETT: THE CASE THAT HELPED INTEGRATE

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schools remained predominantly segregated. City and school officials said the schools reflected the segregated neighborhoods that fed into them. Ford said, however, that higher courts rejected that notion because the city had a history of discriminatory housing practices that helped create segregated communities.

In 1970, the school system began limited busing, but the appeals courts ordered more.

“The busing patterns were designed to be uncomfortable, such as busing students from east Ocean View to Berkley, typically workingclass people,” Ford said. He said changes to the western part of the city, the home of the wealthier decision makers, were minimal.

Ford said the school division was integrated in the 1970s, which led to the Leola Beckett case being closed in 1975. But quickly after that, he said, school and city leaders moved to return to neighborhood schools. Crosstown busing ended for elementary schools in 1986, then middle schools in 2001. Busing for high school stopped in 2010.

Figures from 2008 showed that the school division was 64 percent African American and 24 percent white, almost opposite of what it was in 1958 when the city’s schools were 66 percent white and 34 percent black.

In their 2012 book, Ford and co-author Jeffrey Littlejohn state that the city became segregated by fact and not by law, and that “young people in the inner city were now trapped in an environment of concentrated poverty and deferred dreams.”

The five Norfolk schools that lost state accreditation this year serve predominantly black and poor populations. Ford said Booker T. Washington is the only high school among that five. The school has the highest concentration of poverty, lowest SAT averages and the fewest Advanced Placement courses offered at any high school in Norfolk, according to his book.

Ford said: “It’s quite sad, actually.”

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local faces of civil rights

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As a child, Rodney Jordan remembers when his home phone would ring and his father would suddenly, mysteriously disappear. Only years later did Jordan realize that his dad was hurrying off to protect his older brother – Rodney’s uncle – Joseph A. Jordan Jr. Joe Jordan was a prominent and outspoken civil rights activist in Norfolk: the founder of a black law firm that challenged segregation in schools, businesses, voting and housing; the lawyer who successfully argued for abolishing Virginia’s poll tax before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1966; the first black person elected to Norfolk City Council since Reconstruction; a General District Court judge.

And Joe Jordan did it all from a wheelchair. As a 19-year-old Army sergeant in World War II, he was paralyzed when a land mine exploded beneath his Jeep in France.

“He literally put his life and livelihood on the line every day to fight for equality,” Rodney Jordan said. “People would threaten him, vandalize his home, order hits on him.”

Joe Jordan, who died in 1991 at age 67, operated in a more hostile environment than leaders battling similar discrimination issues today, his family and friends say.

Ellis James, a close friend and fellow activist, recalls that even seeing a black and white person together in the 1950s was unusual in Hampton Roads. James, who is white and now lives in Chesapeake, once was pulled over and questioned by police because he had a black friend sitting in the front seat of his car.

When Joe Jordan was representing the family of a black man shot by a local white law enforcement officer, James convinced his fiercely independent friend to let him come along to the courthouse.

“I thought people might be less likely to assassinate him if he was standing beside a white man,” James said.

“Joe wasn’t a ‘go along to get along’ kind of leader. He wasn’t afraid to make people angry.”

Jordan counseled high school stu-

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTO

Joe Jordan, left, was Norfolk City Council’s first black member since Reconstruction. He later served as a General District Court judge.

dents pushing for integration, black readers turned away from libraries and Washington Redskins football fans forced into segregated seating.

He organized a nonpartisan organization to register voters, drove a votemobile through Norfolk and awarded prizes to schoolchildren who found new voters in their families.

Black lawyers were scarce as the civil rights movement intensified in Virginia because they were forced out of state for legal education. Joe Jordan attended Brooklyn Law in New York.

Aided by increased financial stability from his military pension, Jordan handled countless local discrimination suits during the 1950s and ’60s.

Just one target was the state’s Pupil Placement Board, created in 1956 to approve all applications for student transfers. Over the following three years, the board oversaw some 450,000 placements yet never allowed a black child to be assigned to a previously all-white school.

In 1957, Joe Jordan, the oldest of nine siblings, represented his baby sister Margot after their parents held her out of school rather than signing placement papers for a black school farther from their home. Margot went back to the integrated school after a judge issued a temporary order prohibiting enforcement of Virginia’s Pupil Placement Act, but the battle would rage on for years.

Margot, now 72, recalls her brother wanted opportunities for his siblings – and all young African Americans – although she as a teenager balked at attending a previously all-white school.

“He was much braver,” she notes.

“He was a very deep thinker and always worked so hard.”

The son of a baker and a teacher, and the longtime husband of a director of Norfolk State University’s library, Joe Jordan told his nephew that he was motivated by a desire to honor a “proud African heritage.”

He wanted people of all races to participate fully in mainstream society and be “producers, not beggars,” he wrote in “We Can Make It … Together,” a book he also published.

“We are duty-bound to do all we can to help enhance that Heritage, not merely for our good, but for the good of all mankind,” he wrote in a 1989 letter to Rodney and his older brother. “Those who enslaved us didn’t just load up a bunch of African dummies to bring to America – they chose the best, the skilled, the strong and the intelligent.”

After winning the famous 1966 poll tax case of Butts v. Harrison, Joe Jordan was elected to City Council in 1968. He served until 1977, including acting as Vice Mayor, a role he used to push for greater public participation during meetings. He was a judge for nine years and also ran a number of business ventures, including a convenience store and gas station.

“My uncle had real strength and optimism, a real knowledge of history and of progress made before him,” said Rodney Jordan, now education chairman for the Norfolk branch of the NAACP and a member of the Norfolk School Board. “I want to pass that entire attitude along.”

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SINGER HAD START IN PROTEST SPIRITUALS

By Gabriella Souza The Virginian-Pilot

Regina McConnell grew up singing at church in Norfolk and in her parlor, where her father had a wind-up Victrola and plenty of records of great voices like Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes.

By the time she reached high school in the 1950s with segregation still intact, her performances had extended to weddings and gatherings at the Larchmont homes of white people who were on her father’s mail route.

Sometimes, her mother allowed her to attend civil rights marches, though they had to be sneaky because her father didn’t approve. McConnell sang to the protestors, spirituals mostly, she remembers, like “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

“Long before Martin Luther King, we were making waves,” McConnell, now 75, recalled.

No one knew it then, but her ringing, bell-like voice would one day grace great concert halls around the U.S. and Europe, including Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall in New York.

McConnell, then known by her maiden name Rainey, took voice lessons in high school from a member of the faculty of what is now Virginia State University. Her father, a bass baritone in the choir at Norfolk’s African American Catholic church St. Joseph’s, always encouraged her, she said.

She performed in musicals and even won a televised competition. And she participated in marches for civil rights, including one that snaked down Church Street

Regina McConnell sang in “Porgy and Bess” at Radio City Music Hall.

and ended at the Norfolk jail to signal support for demonstrators incarcerated there.

Then, McConnell headed off to Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio. It took some adjusting to get used to life after segregation, which “we didn’t feel so much because we were used to it,” she said.

She and her roommate were the only two black women in the freshman class.

There McConnell met her would-be husband, Dudley, who worked as a scientist and administrator for NASA. She later finished her bachelor of arts at the University of Maryland and attended graduate school in Washington, D.C. She and her husband had two children.

Her career started to boom in the early 1960s, when she won the regional Metropolitan Opera Auditions, a coveted award that has jump-started many opera singers’ careers. She sang in “Porgy and Bess” at Radio City Music Hall and with symphony orchestras around the country.

Her home town stayed updated on her progress: The Virginian-Pilot ran a story on Dec. 16, 1965, when she was the soprano soloist at a performance of Handel’s Messiah in Cleveland.

McConnell never moved back to Norfolk. She said

that when she visited her family, she felt like an outsider, as most of her classmates from St. Joseph’s School had remained in Norfolk.

Living outside segregation also had opened her eyes to the disparities she’d grown up with. It infuriated her that her earliest school hadn’t had indoor toilets and that its library “was from the Stone Age” while the white schools had brand new books.

She did return to Norfolk to perform. She gave a concert in February 1980 at the Chrysler Museum, according to a story in The New Journal and Guide, Norfolk’s African American newspaper. She also sang and recorded a collection of art songs at Old Dominion University.

Alveta Green, a former Norfolk councilwoman and School Board member who asked McConnell to sing at her wedding, saved wedding programs as souvenirs.

She said she was thrilled that her old friend, particularly one with an international presence who’d broken ground as an African American, stayed connected to her home town.

And, “she always had such a beautiful voice,” Green said.

McConnell now lives in Maryland with her mother, who is 102. McConnell isn’t performing or touring much since heart bypass surgery a few years ago, but reflects happily on her career.

“I’ve had a full life,” she said. “I have no regrets.”

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timeline civil rights through the years Some major national and local events

Continued from previous page February 24, 1956: Sen. Byrd coins the term “Massive Resistance” to describe a campaign of new state laws and policies preventing public school desegregation.

May 17, 1954: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that segregation in schools is unconstitutional, but fails to explain how quickly and in what manner desegregation is to be achieved.

March 23, 1956: Thurgood Marshall, a Special Counsel for the NAACP and future Supreme Court justice, addresses the Virginia Teachers Association assembled at the Center Theater in Norfolk. Marshall asks: “Why is it that states north of Virginia, west of Virginia and way south can desegregate, and Virginia can’t?”

June 26, 1954: U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr. vows to stop the plans to integrate Virginia schools.

February 1955: The Women’s Council for Interracial Cooperation, formed in 1945, holds a meeting to inform Norfolk residents about desegregation; 400-500 attend.

September 21, 1956: The Virginia General Assembly requires that any public school with both black and white students be closed.

July 14, 1955: More than 200 black citizens sign a petition asking the Norfolk School Board for “good faith compliance” with the Supreme Court decision and requesting a reorganization of schools along non-racial lines “at the earliest practicable date.”

See next page

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTOS

THE NORFOLK 17 From left to right: Carol Wellington and Johnnie Rouse, Norview High School’s first four African American students (Patricia Turner, James Turner, Wellington Forbes and Edward Jordan), Alveraze Frederick, Delores Johnson and Edward Jordan.

HAMPTON ROADS LARGEST DEALER.

September 27, 1958: Gov. J. Lindsay Almond Jr. orders white secondary schools in Norfolk to close to prevent desegregation.

January 19, 1959: Both the

Thurgood Marshall addresses the Virginia Teachers Association in Norfolk on March 23, 1956. Marshall asks: “Why is it that states north of Virginia, west of Virginia and way south can desegregate, and Virginia can’t?”

Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court overturn the decision of Gov. Almond to close schools in Front Royal, Charlottesville and Norfolk.

February 2, 1959: Seventeen

black students in Norfolk and four in Arlington County peacefully enroll in white schools.

February 1960: Following the lead of national lunch counter sit ins, students

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTOS

Dozens of young African Americans held a peaceful sit-in demonstration at Woolworth’s Store on Granby Street on Feb. 13, 1960, to protest the segregated lunch counter.

at Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, are the first in Virginia to protest at lunch counters in the area.

Around lunchtime on Feb. 11, about 30 students take stools at Woolworth’s on

Queen Street in Hampton and remain seated – without being served – until the counter closes about an hour later.

The next day, they do the same thing at a drugstore.

At 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, 38

local college students sit in at the Woolworth’s store on Granby Street. They return the following day to find that Woolworth’s has roped off its lunch counter. They press on

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timeline civil rights through the years Some major national and local events

Continued from previous page February 24, 1956: Sen. Byrd coins the term “Massive Resistance” to describe a campaign of new state laws and policies preventing public school desegregation.

May 17, 1954: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that segregation in schools is unconstitutional, but fails to explain how quickly and in what manner desegregation is to be achieved.

March 23, 1956: Thurgood Marshall, a Special Counsel for the NAACP and future Supreme Court justice, addresses the Virginia Teachers Association assembled at the Center Theater in Norfolk. Marshall asks: “Why is it that states north of Virginia, west of Virginia and way south can desegregate, and Virginia can’t?”

June 26, 1954: U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr. vows to stop the plans to integrate Virginia schools.

February 1955: The Women’s Council for Interracial Cooperation, formed in 1945, holds a meeting to inform Norfolk residents about desegregation; 400-500 attend.

September 21, 1956: The Virginia General Assembly requires that any public school with both black and white students be closed.

July 14, 1955: More than 200 black citizens sign a petition asking the Norfolk School Board for “good faith compliance” with the Supreme Court decision and requesting a reorganization of schools along non-racial lines “at the earliest practicable date.”

See next page

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTOS

THE NORFOLK 17 From left to right: Carol Wellington and Johnnie Rouse, Norview High School’s first four African American students (Patricia Turner, James Turner, Wellington Forbes and Edward Jordan), Alveraze Frederick, Delores Johnson and Edward Jordan.

HAMPTON ROADS LARGEST DEALER.

September 27, 1958: Gov. J. Lindsay Almond Jr. orders white secondary schools in Norfolk to close to prevent desegregation.

January 19, 1959: Both the

Thurgood Marshall addresses the Virginia Teachers Association in Norfolk on March 23, 1956. Marshall asks: “Why is it that states north of Virginia, west of Virginia and way south can desegregate, and Virginia can’t?”

Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court overturn the decision of Gov. Almond to close schools in Front Royal, Charlottesville and Norfolk.

February 2, 1959: Seventeen

black students in Norfolk and four in Arlington County peacefully enroll in white schools.

February 1960: Following the lead of national lunch counter sit ins, students

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTOS

Dozens of young African Americans held a peaceful sit-in demonstration at Woolworth’s Store on Granby Street on Feb. 13, 1960, to protest the segregated lunch counter.

at Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, are the first in Virginia to protest at lunch counters in the area.

Around lunchtime on Feb. 11, about 30 students take stools at Woolworth’s on

Queen Street in Hampton and remain seated – without being served – until the counter closes about an hour later.

The next day, they do the same thing at a drugstore.

At 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, 38

local college students sit in at the Woolworth’s store on Granby Street. They return the following day to find that Woolworth’s has roped off its lunch counter. They press on

See next page

SALES SERVICE PARTS BODY SHOP More Cars. Great People.

1-800-242-HALL (4255) www.hallauto.com

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timeline civil rights through the years Continued from previous page to another nearby store, S.S. Kresge, then W.T. Grant.

May 12, 1963: 25 students from Old Dominion College, Virginia State College and Booker T. Washington High School march on Brambleton Avenue, Granby Street to Plume Street to demonstrate against segregation. A spokesman calls the demonstration “the

beginning of a concerted effort to end racial discrimination.” The students carry placards referencing the agreement made the previous day by a biracial citizens committee in Birmingham to end segregation in that city.

June 1963: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a speech at a statewide rally of the South Christian Leadership Conference held at Suffolk’s Peanut Park.

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August 23, 1963: Malcolm X arrives in Norfolk for a Q&A on the WNOR radio station. While here, he visits Muhammad’s Mosque on Church Street.

August 28, 1963: About 400 people from Hampton Roads board buses heading to D.C. for the March on Washington.

April 4, 1968: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis. Virginia Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. follows the lead of President Johnson and orders flags on state buildings to be flown at half-staff. There is a peaceful student march in Norfolk by 1,200 students from Norfolk State College.

Norfolk Mayor Roy B. Martin Jr. meets with the marchers and proclaims a day of mourning for the day King’s funeral is held.

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTOS

Participants board buses in Norfolk for the NAACP caravan to Washington to attend the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” in August 1963. The march would go down in history as the event where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

discusses his position on the Vietnam War and his refusal to serve in the United States Armed Forces. Ali says as a member in the Nation of Islam, he is a conscientious objector and is willing to be incarcerated, if the courts ruled so. Ali is warmly

May 8, 1968: Muhammad Ali speaks at Norfolk State College (now Norfolk State University) as a visiting speaker sponsored by the Norfolk State student government. The former heavyweight champion

received by the students and his views on black pride and self loves are cheered, while his controversial views on a separate black nation within America are frowned upon by members of the audience.

After leaving the college, Ali addresses students at Booker

T. Washington High School.

– Compiled by Pilot News Researchers Maureen Watts and Jakon Hays Sources: Norfolk Public Library, encyclopediavirginia. org, PilotOnline.com, The Virginian-Pilot

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local faces of civil rights

ONCE DENIED RIGHT TO VOTE, SHE LATER EARNED VOTES

By Alison Johnson Correspondent

Before she was a champion of voting rights in Virginia, Edythe Harrison was simply a 21-year-old “kid” excited to finally be old enough to vote.

In 1957, Harrison had moved to Norfolk from Detroit with her husband, Stanley.

Already shocked by the racial segregation she encountered in a southern state, she got another lesson when she tried to register to vote: While she is white, she was pegged as a threat to Virginia’s ruling establishment’s plans to resist integration.

“The idea was to keep a very small electorate,” recalled Harrison, now 80. “I know this all sounds crazy now, but they didn’t want any new, liberal people – black or white – and especially not some liberal Yankee woman.”

Over the next year and a half, Harrison said, the City Treasurer’s office tried to deny her a registration card.

First, she was required to pay a poll tax, a tool once used by many states to disenfranchise poor and minority voters. When she returned with a payment receipt, an employee told her the receipt was worthless and he had no way to search payment records.

On another visit, Harrison was informed she had violated Norfolk’s residency requirements by spending a summer in Virginia Beach.

The last time she turned up, she had advance warning of another tactic more common to the Deep South: surprising would-be voters with blank pieces of paper and demanding they write out the entire Preamble to

the Constitution before they could register.

“I marched up and said, ‘Don’t you dare give me the blank paper. I know the Preamble – I memorized it,’ ” she said. “Well, that was a big lie. But they finally gave up.”

Harrison, who moved to Florida about five years ago, would spend the next several decades pushing for voting rights for all, including ending the poll tax – ruled unconstitutional in 1966 by the Supreme Court – and local and statewide districting that denied fair representation to minority and urban communities.

She petitioned door-todoor, campaigned for fellow-minded candidates, founded and ran for numerous local committees and councils and served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1979 to 1982, where she also fought for women’s rights. In 1984, she became the first woman in Virginia nominated for statewide office when she ran for the Senate against Republican incumbent John Warner.

Her motivation wasn’t anger, Harrison said, but the belief that excluding anyone from equal participation in a society hurts the entire society. She cites the fallout from Virginia’s decision to close public schools in the 1950s rather than integrate.

“It basically closed communities, because who wants to live in a place with no schools?” she said.

“It broke up families when parents sent their children away to live with grandparents.”

When she ran for lo cal positions, her flyers were ripped down and her friends were threatened.

“It was like watching a movie, but it was real,” she

Edythe Harrison pushed for universal voting rights before serving in Virginia’s House of Delegates from 1979 to 1982. She also helped found the Virginia Opera.

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTO

said. “I was just never afraid because I knew history was on my side.”

Harrison credits her upbringing in Detroit, where women worked in factories throughout World War II, for her willingness to venture outside the traditional paths of teaching or nursing.

Instead, the mother of three earned acting roles in television commercials.

“My nice, supportive husband had to wonder if everyone thought he couldn’t support me,” she said.

The daughter of a concert-

pianist mother and operabuff father, Harrison left a permanent mark on Hampton Roads’ cultural scene. In 1974, she became the principal founder of Virginia Opera; Norfolk’s Harrison Opera House is named for her and husband Stanley, a real estate executive who passed away in 1991.

She also was instrumental in launching the women’s studies program at Old Dominion University.

The civil rights movement taught Harrison – who recently volunteered for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign – how many hands go into creating slow change.

“There were a lot of tough times,” she said. “I was such a small piece of it. I was just the kid who wanted to vote.”

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local faces of civil rights

EVELYN BUTTS FORCED CHANGE

MASON’S ACTIVISM STILL SEEN IN NORFOLK

By Elisabeth Hulette

By Elisabeth Hulette

The Virginian-Pilot

The Virginian-Pilot

Evelyn T. Butts was an unemployed seamstress living in Norfolk with three daughters and a husband disabled from World War II. She couldn’t afford $1.50 to vote.

The year was 1963, and although the federal government had struck down poll taxes, Virginia was holding on to its own. Butts believed it was institutionalized discrimination designed to keep black people and poor whites from voting.

Some shook their heads.

Butts filed suit.

If you knew her, you wouldn’t be surprised, said her daughter, Charlene Ligon, who now lives in Omaha, Neb. Butts had a passion for civics and justice, she said, and a yearning to see African Americans take a stand in government. In time, The Virginian-Pilot would call her Norfolk’s “matriarch of local black politics.”

“She always taught me that when you see injustice you need to speak out.

You need to not be afraid of sticking up for what you believe in, and she believed in doing the right thing for everyone,” Ligon said.

“She was definitely a person who fought for people who didn’t have a voice.”

Butts got her start as a local mover and shaker through a number of fights, usually for African Americans, often in or around the city’s Oakwood section. Once, Ligon said, she worked to force a grocery store in the heart of a black neighborhood to hire

It was rare in 1917 for a black woman to go to college.

It was rarer for her to go on to graduate school, and rarer still to rise through the ranks of New York City’s social services system until she supervised 4,000 people.

Yet Vivian Carter Mason did. And then, in the 1940s, she applied all her education, expertise and passion to a cause that perhaps needed her most: Norfolk’s public schools.

Mason died in 1982, but her fingerprints remain on the city’s schools and social issues today. George Crawley, who worked with her to create the Urban League of Hampton Roads, said she was dynamic, the kind of person who stood out in a crowd.

“She had that quiet dignity that would lend itself to people following and developing the cohesion to making things happen,” Crawley said. “She was quite an advocate for public education, human rights – all the good stuff, if you will.”

Mason grew up in an upstate New York family that valued education tremendously, said her son, William T. Mason.

One of her brothers went to Harvard, and Mason herself studied political science and social work at the University of Chicago. She later did graduate work at Fordham University and Hunter College.

Her husband built a business in Norfolk, but when their son was born, Mason refused to send him to seg-

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTO

Evelyn Butts fought to eliminate the Virginia poll tax.

a black cashier. Another time, she fought Norfolk’s plan to redevelop the Tanners Creek area.

If the city had succeeded, Ligon said, many African Americans there likely wouldn’t have been able to afford homes anywhere else.

Then in 1963 Butts filed her poll-tax lawsuit. It went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which bundled it with other suits against the tax and in 1966 struck down the practice.

Butts kept going. She fought for i nteg rate d schools, and she fought for affordable housing as the first black female commissioner on the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority. Almost as soon as she was appointed, she publicly chastised the group for building only 13 houses in three years.

The commissioners, used to public shows of agreement, bristled, according to news reports at the time. Blunt and unapologetic, Butts simply said she wanted to bring the problem out into the open.

Over the years, Butts registered thousands of black voters and helped elect some of Norfolk’s first African American officials.

She founded a group whose voters’ guide, according to a Virginian-Pilot article, was taken as gospel by many blacks in Norfolk.

“People in the African A mer ic a n c om mu n it y trusted her not to sell them down the road,” Ligon said.

“Sometimes we’d say, ‘Why aren’t you getting paid for this?’ She said, ‘When they pay you, they own you.’ ” In 1980, Butts ran for City Council. She lost, then lost the next two times she tried. Eventually her influential coalition fell out of favor as a splinter group came to power.

Butts died in 1993 at 68 years old. Ligon said her mother never had someone to advocate for her the way she advocated for other candidates.

At her funeral, attended by hundreds, according to her obituary, Bishop O.W. McInnis said Butts was born in poverty, dropped out of high school and lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. When some in the community claimed change would come, he said Butts insisted: “I will change things.”

Elisabeth Hulette, 757-222-5097, elisabeth.hulette@pilotonline. com

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTO

Vivian Mason worked to create the local Urban League.

regated southern schools.

She moved to Harlem, where he attended integrated schools and she built a career.

It was injury in a train wreck outside Philadelphia in the 1940s that sent her back to Norfolk, her son said. But she didn’t sit back while she recovered.

Mason organized an interracial women’s council and, with her husband, organized a hospital for blacks, her son said. She fought for desegregation, and when Norfolk’s schools closed in 1958 rather than open their doors to black students, she created a temporary school in a Baptist church for the 17 handpicked black teens who would be the first through the doors when they opened.

W hen those students finally did go to white schools, facing jeers, abuse and worse, Mason drove to each school to see them through it, her son said. “ S e g r e g at io n i s t he crushing of the spirit,” she was quoted saying years later in The Virginian-Pilot. “… It’s a burning brand and can mark you for life.”

In 1971 Mason became the first black woman appointed to Norfolk’s school board. Her son said she

tried to use the position to bring about much-needed changes, like furthering equality and ending forced busing, but with little support on the board, she accomplished little.

“That’s why she quit,” Mason said.

In 1978 she left the board to create a local chapter of the National Urban League.

The group is still active with programs in housing, education and workforce development, said President Edith White. For example, by working with banks and families, the league has prevented 3,000 foreclosures.

“Those 3,000 homes we saved are a very important part of her legacy,” White said. “The families can really thank her.”

The group gives an award in Mason’s name every year.

In a Virginian-Pilot article written two years before she died in 1982, Mason laughed at being called a rebel.

“Anyone who sees the inequities of our times and the slowness of change must not see it as a terrible thing, but see it as his duty,” she said. “Every authority should be rebelled against – when it is wrong.”

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Themed group tours available at Jamestown Settlement with advance reservations. A combo ticket to both museums is $21 for adults and $10.50 for children 6-12. Admission to Jamestown Settlement is $16.75 adults, $7.75 ages 6-12; and to the Yorktown Victory Center, $9.75 adults, $5.50 ages 6-12. Children under 6 are free. 253-4838 or visit www. historyisfun.org.

Narrated Guided Walking Tour, 45 minutes. Through Feb. 28.

Unknown and Known Afro-Union Civil War Soldiers Memorial, 1001 Bells Mill Road, Chesapeake. $10.

Registration required one week in advance. 547-5542.

African American History Month Opening Celebration, A Century of Black Life, History and Culture in Hampton Roads.

Five distinguished African Americans who have made unique contributions to the black community in Hampton Roads are honored: James A. Clark, Jack Holmes, Bonnie McEachin, Reginald Walker and P.B. Young. Patricia Saunders Nixon, assistant professor of voice at Norfolk State University, will perform. 3 p.m. Slover Library, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk.

441-2852.

MONDAY Healthier You Living Series, 5:156:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6, 9, 13, 16, 20, 23 and 27. Norfolk State University-Gill Gym, 700 Park Ave., Norfolk. Held in the dance studio. 823-2864 or komiller@ nsu.edu.

Fourth annual Conversations in the Kitchen: Black Women Speak on Contemporary Issues, 6 p.m.

Norfolk State University, Student Center, Room 138B. 823-2864 or komiller@nsu.edu.

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Black History Scavenger Hunt, learn about famous black Americans while polishing your Internet surfing skills (for schoolaged children). 4 p.m. Horace C. Downing Library, 555 E. Liberty St., Norfolk. 441-1968.

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Interesting People Puppet Show, explore the dramatic lives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Garrett Morgan, Matthew Henson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Wilma Rudolph, Madam C.J. Walker, Duke Ellington and others in a puppet presentation.

5:30 p.m. Larchmont Branch Library, 6525 Hampton Blvd., Norfolk. 441-5335.

FEB. 4 “A Narrated Guided Tour of AfroUnion Soldier and Sailor Sites Around the Black Soldiers Memorial,” noon-1:30 p.m. Feb. 4, 11, 18 and 25. West Point

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Section of Elmwood Cemetery, 238 E. Princess Anne Road, Norfolk. Donations accepted.

Registration required one week in advance. 547-5542.

Meet Addy: An American Girl, A Book Club Just for Girls shares the story of Addy, a courageous girl determined to be free in the midst of the Civil War. Discussion and snacks.

Registration required: 4411750 or carol.aubut@norfolk. gov. 4:30-5:15 p.m. Feb. 4, 11, 18 and 25. Mary D. Pretlow Anchor Branch Library, 111 W. Ocean View Ave., Norfolk.

“Burning Blue,” film and discussion. 7 p.m. Norfolk State University, Student Center, Room 149. Free. komiller@nsu.edu; 823-2864.

FEB. 5 The History of African Americans in Television News, speaker Barbara Hamm Lee shares the history of African Americans in television news and how one Hampton Roads city led the way towards integrating the airways. 7 p.m.

Slover Library, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk. Held in 6th floor meeting room. 664-7323.

FEB. 6 “A Narrated Guided Driving Tour of Afro-Union Civil War Trails Sites in Chesapeake,” departs from Great Bridge Boulevard and Riverwalk. 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Feb. 6, 13, 20 and 27. $30.

Registration required one week in advance. 547-5542.

“A Narrated Guided Driving Tour of African American Historical and Cultural Sites in Chesapeake,” departs from Great Bridge Boulevard and Riverwalk. 1-4 p.m. Feb. 6, 13, 20 and 27. $30.

Registration required one week in advance. 547-5542.

FEB. 7 African American Artists of Hampton Roads Art Exhibit, paintings, sculptures, quilts and photographs. 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Slover Library, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk. Reception at 3 p.m.

664-7323.

“African Heritage Booksellers Marketplace,” books on the antiquities of Egypt, Ethiopia and West Africa and Civil War/ African American history for children, parents and teachers.

1-5 p.m. Feb. 7, 14, 21 and 28. The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake.

547-5542.

“An Archival Pictorial Poster Exhibit,” of Afro-Union Medal of Honor recipients, more. 1-5 p.m. Feb. 7, 14, 21 and 28. The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake.

NORFOLK REDEVELOPMENT AND HOUSING AUTHORITY

On Feb. 5 in Norfolk, Barbara Hamm Lee will share the history of African Americans in TV news.

547-5542.

“Black Genealogical Research Guidelines: Is Black History Your Family’s History?” 2-4 p.m.

The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake.

Space limited; registration recommended. 547-5542.

“Emancipation Proclamation,” a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation “official edition,” signed by President Abraham Lincoln, on loan from Mobile African Heritage Museum Tour of Chesapeake. 1-5 p.m. The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake.

547-5542.

The Voices of Norfolk Concert Choir, 1 p.m. Janaf Branch Library, 124 Janaf Shopping Center, Norfolk. 441-5660.

Ubuntu Dance Collective, choreographer Sunshine Allison leads this group of women and children in a presentation that fuses ancient and contemporary African, Caribbean and urban dance styles. 1 p.m. Horace C. Downing Library, 555 E. Liberty St., Norfolk. 441-1968.

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FEB. 9 Quest Book Club: Freedom on the Menu, 5:30 p.m. Blyden Branch Library, 879 E. Princess Anne Road, Norfolk. 441-2852.

“Diaspora and Caribbean Transnationalism: The Haitian Experience in Cuba,” film and discussion. 6 p.m. Norfolk State University, Student Center, Room 149. Free. 823-2864 or komiller@nsu.edu.

Interesting People Puppet Show,

explore the dramatic lives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Garrett Morgan, Matthew Henson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Wilma Rudolph,

Legacy of Weyanoke, an a cappella vocal ensemble, will take Jamestown Settlement visitors on a musical journey that pays tribute to African ancestors 3 p.m. Feb. 14-15.

FEB. 11 African American Health Fair and Blood Drive, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Norfolk State University, Student Center, Rooms 138 B & C. Free and open to the public.

Good Life Band, 2 p.m. Blyden Branch Library, 879 E. Princess Anne Road, Norfolk. 441-2852.

Doll Making 101, for school age and teens. Make dolls similar to the ones slave children made.

4:30 p.m. Horace C. Downing Library, 555 E. Liberty St., Norfolk. 441-1968.

FEB. 8

FEB. 12

African American Family Festival, afternoon of youth activities, a book sale, and musical performances by the bands Rhythmania and Caribbean Steel. 2 p.m. Mary D. Pretlow Anchor Branch Library, 111 W. Ocean View Ave., Norfolk.

441-1750.

Keynote Speaker Michael Tubbs, will talk about his life journey.

He was born to a teen mother and incarcerated father. He climbed out of poverty to become a community leader and was elected to the city council in Stockton, Calif.

Part of Tidewater Community College’s A Century of Black Life, History and Culture.

12:30 p.m. TCC-Portsmouth Campus, 120 Campus Drive.

Held in Student Center, Multipurpose room.

Norfolk State University Vocal Jazz Ensemble, show choir presents a combination of song, dance and improvisation.

3 p.m. Slover Library, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk. 664-7323.

Pretlow Anchor Branch Library, 111 W. Ocean View Ave., Norfolk. 441-1750.

African-American Crafts, masks and shields. 4:30 p.m. Mary D.

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Madam C.J. Walker, Duke Ellington and others in a puppet presentation.

5:30 p.m. Little Creek Branch Library, 7853 Tarpon Place, Norfolk. 441-1751.

“For Colored Girls …”, 8 p.m.

Feb. 12-14; 3 p.m. Feb. 15. Brown Memorial Hall Theatre, Norfolk State University, Corprew Avenue at Marathon Avenue. $10, $5 in groups of 10 or more and military. 823-9009, ext. 5. www.nsutheatre.com.

FEB. 14 “An Archival Pictorial Exhibit of Historic Colored Churches in Norfolk County 1862-1912,” 1-5 p.m. The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake. 547-5542.

African American Cinema Celebration, 1 p.m. Feb. 14, 21 and 28. Horace C. Downing Library, 555 E. Liberty St., Norfolk.

441-1968.

African American Musical Imprint Weekend, will feature performances by Dylan “The Storyteller” Pritchett, the Northern Neck Chantey Singers and Legacy of Weyanoke.

Gallery exhibits and

JAMESTOWN-YORKTOWN FOUNDATION

In Yorktown Victory Center’s re-created Continental Army encampment, visitors can see a representation of a coat worn by ex-slaves who joined the British 33rd Regiment of Foot.

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Dylan “The Storyteller” Pritchett will present tales of Africa and African American heritage Feb. 14-15 at Jamestown Settlement.

NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY

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daily interpretive programs highlight the culture of the first recorded Africans in Virginia in 1619. Feb. 14-15. Jamestown Settlement, 2110 Jamestown Road, Williamsburg. $16.75 adults and $7.75 ages 6-12.

Children under 6 are free.

757-253-4838 or visit www. historyisfun.org.

“Civil War, Civil Rights, to Human Rights: The March Toward a More Perfect Union 18652015?” 2-4 p.m. The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake. Space limited; registration recommended.

547-5542.

Ju Ju & After Hours Band, 1 p.m.

Park Place Branch Library, 620 W. 29th St., Norfolk. 664-7330.

Just Us Gospel Band, 1 p.m.

Jordan-Newby Branch Library, 961 Park Ave., Norfolk.

441-2843.

Osmosis Jazz Band, 1 p.m.

Lafayette Branch Library, 1610 Cromwell Drive, Norfolk.

441-2842.

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Reader’s Theater: “Trapped in the Past,” for school-age children. 2 p.m. Janaf Branch Library, 124 Janaf Shopping Center, Norfolk. 441-5660.

Elbert Watson Dance Company, Transcendence and TriumphCelebrating the Diversity of our Spirit and Culture. 3 p.m.

Slover Library, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk. 664-7323.

FEB. 15 “In the Heat of the Night,” a screening of the Academy Award-winning film, followed by a panel discussion of the film, its depiction of race relations and relevance today. 2 p.m.

Tidewater Community College’s Roper Performing Arts Center, 340 Granby St., Norfolk. Free. www.tccropercenter.org.

FEB. 17 “Cover of the Czar,” film and discussion. 7 p.m. Norfolk State University, Student Center, Room 149. Free. komiller@nsu.edu; 8232864.

FEB. 18 A Legacy of Activism: Civil Rights Panel Discussion, featuring NSU students, faculty and staff.

6 p.m. Norfolk State UniversityStudent Center, Room 138 B.

FEB. 19 32nd annual Images of Black Voices, 12:30 p.m. Norfolk State University-Student Center, Room 138 B. Pottery event, listen to an African fable and paint pottery with Color Me Mine Ceramic Studios; for school age and teens. 4 p.m.

Barron F. Black Branch Library, 6700 E. Tanners Creek Drive, Norfolk. Register, 441-5806.

FEB. 20 “Harriet Tubman and the

Underground Railroad,” 10 a.m. and noon. Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, 201 Market St., Virginia Beach. $10-$25.

385-2535. sandlercenter.org.

“In the Heat of the Night,” L.A. Theatre Works presents its stage adaptation of classic American thriller. 8 p.m. Tidewater Community College’s Roper Performing Arts Center, 340 Granby St., Norfolk. $20; $14 TCC faculty, staff and alumni; $10 students; $5 current TCC students. Limit one per student ID. tccropercenter.org.

FEB. 21 “Let My People Go: A Journey on the Underground Railroad,” 11 a.m. Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts, 110 W. Finney Ave. $5.

923-2900.

Third annual African American 757 Author Event, hosted by Sistahs with Sass Book Club. Noon.

Little Creek Branch Library, 7853 Tarpon Place, Norfolk. 441-1751.

“An Archival Pictorial Exhibit of Afro-Norfolk County Reconstruction Era Elected Officials 1867-1894,” 1-5 p.m.

The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake.

547-5542.

A Folktale from West Africa Storytime, 1 p.m. Jordan-Newby Branch Library, 961 Park Ave., Norfolk. 441-2843.

Astronauts Storytime, celebrates the first male and female African-Americans in space. 1

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Guion Bluford and Mae Jemison were the first African American man and woman to travel in space. Hear their stories at various library branches in Norfolk.

p.m. Lafayette Branch Library, 1610 Cromwell Drive, Norfolk.

441-2842.

“Afro-Norfolk County Reconstruction-Era Elected Officials,” did blacks really serve on boards, councils, in the General Assembly and U.S. Congress, 1867-1894? 2-4 p.m.

The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake.

Space limited; registration recommended. 547-5542.

Freedom Quilts, slaves had secret ways of communicating with each other and quilts were often used to lead the way to freedom.

2 p.m. Mary D. Pretlow Anchor Branch Library, 111 W. Ocean View Ave., Norfolk. 441-1750.

FEB. 24 NSU Dance Theatre, featuring alumni dancers. 6 p.m. Norfolk State University-Student Center, 700 Park Ave. Room 149. komiller@nsu.edu; 823-2864.

FEB. 25 Astronauts Storytime, celebrates the first male and female African-Americans in space.

11 a.m. Barron F. Black Branch Library, 6700 E. Tanners Creek Drive, Norfolk. Registration, 441-5806.

FEB. 26

Praise Dance Festival, 2 p.m.

Blyden Branch Library, 879 E. Princess Anne Road, Norfolk.

441-2852.

The Role of the Local Black Church and NSU in the Civil Rights Movement in Norfolk, 6 p.m. reception. 7 p.m. program.

Norfolk State University, Lyman Beecher Brooks Library, Archives.

FEB. 22

FEB. 27

I. Sherman Green Chorale, 4 p.m.

Slover Library, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk. 664-7323.

HBCU Choral Festival, Morehouse Glee Club and NSU Concert Choir. 5 p.m. L. Douglas Wilder Performing Arts Center, Norfolk State University, 700 Park Ave., Norfolk. $10-$25. Tickets available at the Wilder Center Box Office the Thursday and Friday before the concert from noon-4 p.m. and one hour prior to concert. No children under 8.

823-8565 or nsuchoirs.com.

The Word Singers, 4 p.m. Shiloh Baptist Church, 745 Park Ave., Norfolk. Free. 466-7832; 4866552.

19th annual Implement The King Dream Awards Gala, with speaker the Rev. Dr. Thomasine Reid. Includes dinner. Tickets can be purchased at Janaf’s Heaven & Earth in Norfolk.

7 p.m. Murray Center, 455 E. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk.

Tickets: adults $35; ages 7-11 $20. 637-0292.

FEB. 28 23rd annual Black History Month Quiz Bowl, 10:30 a.m. Blyden Branch Library, 879 E. Princess Anne Road, Norfolk. 441-2852.

“An Archival Pictorial Exhibit of Historical Colored Schoolhouses in Norfolk County 1865-1954,” and “An Archival Pictorial Exhibit of Colored School

Diplomas, Certificates and Degrees 1890-1940s.” 1-5 p.m.

The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake.

547-5542.

“Educating Colored Children for Freedom,” did Afro-Union Norfolk County Civil War veterans pave the way 18651925? 2-4 p.m. The Cottages at Great Bridge, 625 Bettes Way, Chesapeake. Space limited; registration recommended. 5475542.

African American History Month Youth Art Contest Awards Ceremony, illustrate a scene from your favorite African American book or poem and enter to win prizes. Pre-K through 12th grade. Entries will be accepted at all Norfolk Public Library locations through Feb. 12. 2 p.m. Slover Library, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk. 441-2852.

Patricia Saunders Nixon in Concert, 2 p.m. Van Wyck Branch Library, 1368 DeBree Ave., Norfolk. 441-2844.

14th Annual Gospel Concert, 2:30 p.m. Blyden Branch Library, 879 E. Princess Anne Road, Norfolk. 441-2852.

African American Historical Society of Portsmouth 150th Civil War Sesquicentennial Observance, Our Souls Look Back and Wonder, with author John T. Wayne. Benefits the Portsmouth Colored Community Library Museum. 6-7:30 p.m.

Children’s Museum of Virginia, 221 High St., Portsmouth. $25, includes book, event and reception. maehaywood@msn. com, 487-9431.

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