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Diane Davis-Wagner was born Diane Davis in 1947 and grew up in Mount Herman, a Black working class neighborhood in central Portsmouth, Virginia. In this September 2023 interview, she discusses the psychological impacts of being barred from the all-white swimming pool and golf course as a child. She also discusses the experience of living near what she and her friends referred to as “the Holy Bridge,” the demarcation between the white neighborhood of Churchland and Mount Herman. As a young person, Davis-Wagner participated in civil rights activism with her mother, Helen Davis, supporting lunch counter sit-ins in Portsmouth. She witnessed Dr. Martin Luther King speak in Suffolk, Virginia. She attended I.C. Norcom High School, Virginia Union University, and Norfolk State, where she was one of the first graduates of the PhD program in social work. Later, Davis-Wagner became the second female president of the Central Civic Forum, which worked to elect Black local politicians and led the desegregation movement of the Bide-A-Wee golf course in 1987. She reflects on how her granddaughter enjoys the golf course today as an avid golfer. The interview includes Davis-Wagner’s observations on segregation’s continued legacy throughout the city and the uneven tax burdens levied on the city of Portsmouth today. Davis-Wagner also discusses how Norfolk State University has changed, and the impacts of the 2020 pandemic on her students.
Helen Davis was born in Pennsylvania in 1927 and grew up in Portsmouth, Virginia. Her mother worked as a teacher and her father worked in coal mines in Pennsylvania and then later as a rigger at the Portsmouth Shipyard. In this September 2023 interview, Davis speaks about her experiences attending the all-Black Brighton School and living in a segregated city between the 1940 - 1960s. The interview touches on racial discrimination within the housing system, including her husband’s experiences being denied a home loan while he was serving in the Navy and working for the shipyard. Throughout her life, Davis worked as an advocate of racial justice issues, serving as a secretary for a Black civic league, leading voter registration campaigns and demonstrations, and supporting young activists’ work integrating the Portsmouth lunch counters and high schools. The interview also contains descriptions of the presence of the KKK in Chesapeake, Virginia, her memories of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, and her work on the school board in Portsmouth.
Lathaniel Kirts was born in 1988 and grew up in the Norview community of Norfolk, Virginia. In this oral history interview, he describes his experiences as an honor roll student in Norfolk public schools while he and his family were navigating homelessness. Kirts was granted a scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he studied political science and worked in public service. While serving as a Deputy Clerk in courtrooms in Richmond and in Norfolk, he witnessed the school-to-prison pipeline. This interview includes Kirts’s reflections on his work for Communities and Schools, an organization dedicated to providing social services and mentorship for students in K-12 settings, around housing and food insecurity, and his decision to attend seminary school at Virginia Union, where he graduated in 2015. Kirts is an active community advocate for protecting residents living next to CSX rail yards against coal dust pollution. He served as the Repair Lab Practitioner-in-Residence (2023-2024). This oral history was conducted at Pay First Church, the church that Kirts and his wife lead in Newport News.
Lawrence Turner was born and raised in the southeast community of Newport News. In this interview, Turner describes how his life has been shaped by mentorship he has received within his community, and also the impact environmental racism in Newport News has had on his life. Turner recalls that for at least once a year between 2002 and 2018, sea level rising would impact residents' daily lives, including water lines coming up the third stair of his home during high tides when he lived in the Salters Creek area of Newport News. Turner’s interview contains descriptions of his mentors, teachers, and athletic coaches throughout his secondary education and college experience. Turner graduated from the Call Me MISTER (Men Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) program at Longwood University, in Farmville, Virginia. His work as a high school counselor at schools in Newport News and Mansassas empowered students both in athletics and in post-high school work and education. Within his numerous community advocacy roles, Turner has helped develop a Toxic Tour, highlighting sites in the southeast community of Newport News contributing to air pollution. This oral history also includes Turner’s reflections on Newport News interstate traffic, gun violence, and how it impacted his family and mental health.
Ray Smith was born in Douglas Park, Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1954. His father worked in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and when the city of Portsmouth built the interstate in Douglas Park, his family and other residents were forced to relocate to the Mount Hermon neighborhood. When the city of Portsmouth announced the closure of I.C. Norcom, a historically Black high school in 1972, Smith and others organized a walkout in protest. I.C. Norcom was saved and eventually rebuilt in 1999, when Smith served on the school board. Smith became involved in city politics working for governor and presidential campaigns and served as the President of the Civic League, a community organization dedicated to improving conditions for the Portsmouth community of Cavalier Manor, of which he was a resident for 45 years. In this interview, Smith discusses the ways that recent tolls in Portsmouth have impacted Portsmouth residents and how the city dealt with Hurricane Isabel.
Vernon Crump was born in 1929 in Portsmouth, Virginia, and has been a leader in civil rights work in the city since he was 25 years old. Crump’s roots in the area extend for generations. Crump’s great-grandfather, George Crump, was one of the founding members of the Zion Baptist Church, created by Black residents in 1865 just after the Civil War. In this oral history interview, Crump reflects on the city as it was transformed by WWII, recalling his mother’s experience serving white WWII sailors breakfast at the Portsmouth Shipyard, and his own memory delivering news about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As a young child, Crump worked as a shoe shiner in a white barber shop. Crump reflects on his time playing football and going to school dances in segregated schools in the 1940s and 50s, and his long and successful battles fighting workplace discrimination throughout his career with the Department of Disposal. In the 1950s and 60s, Crump led major voter registration campaigns with the Civic League in Portsmouth, which registered Black voters and later helped to elect the first Black man and woman to the City Council, the first Black judge, and the first Black Clerk of Court in Portsmouth. This interview, conducted with Crump’s son, Vernon Crump III also present, also includes Crump’s reflections on police violence and rising sea levels in the city of Portsmouth.
