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Billy Mercury, Lathaniel Kirts and Malcolm Jones grew up in the Park Place neighborhood of Norfolk in the 1990s, a historically Black neighborhood. The three reflect on their experiences growing up, changes in the neighborhood due to gentrification, as well as Kirts and Jones’s time working in the Department of Corrections.
Donquitta Clements is a resident and advocate in Southeast Newport News, where she was raised. In this interview, she discusses the impact of coal dust and other environmental pollutants on her family’s health. She also reflects on changes to the neighborhood through the Choice Neighborhood Initiative, a federally funded program through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Monét Johnson is a Norfolk resident and advocate working with New Virginia Majority, a nonprofit focused on economic and racial justice. She works as the Lead Organizer for Housing and Environment. Johnson was born in 1996 in Brockton, Massachusetts, and spent her summers as a child in Virginia before moving to Norfolk.
Track 1: In this oral history, Johnson discusses her experience growing up in a majority-Cape Verdean community in Massachusetts, her memories visiting her family in Virginia, and her organizing work during her college years at Framingham State University. Johnson describes her work at New Virginia Majority starting in 2020 fighting housing discrimination and combating environmental injustices, including rising sea levels and coal dust pollution in Norfolk.
Track 2: Johnson discusses the legal battle with the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority in 2021, where she was a plaintiff on behalf of residents of St Paul’s public housing. In 2020, New Virginia Majority sued the city for housing discrimination violating the federal Fair Housing Act on behalf of Black residents. The lawsuit alleged that the NRHA perpetuated systemic racism and segregation through redevelopment of St Paul’s and the resulting displacement of hundreds of Black residents. Johnson’s party, made up of the New Virginia Majority and several other civil right organizations, won the lawsuit on behalf of tenants. The interview also discusses Johnson’s experiences advocating with public housing residents for better flooding and facility management and safer accommodations for children and elders. Kim Sudderth is also present in this interview.
Yugonda Sample-Jones is a resident and activist in Southeast Newport News.
Track 1: In this conversation, Sample-Jones describes her experience advocating for residents during the design process for the Choice Neighborhood Initiative, a federally-funded program aimed at supporting neighborhoods with HUD-assisted housing. Lifelong residents Millie Taylor and her cousin Raymond Wazeerud-Din join the conversation from Taylor’s porch on 20th Street in Newport News, discussing their decades of living in the area and environmental concerns through the generations.
This conversation with Sample-Jones takes place outdoors and on the site of the Choice Neighborhood Initiative, near the East End neighborhood of Newport News.
Track 2: This conversation takes place at the coal terminal in Newport News. Sample-Jones drives around with interviewer Adrian Wood and discusses the impact of the coal terminal on residents of Southeast Newport News.
