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Ann Creasy lived in the Lambert’s Point/Park Place area while a student at Old Dominion University from 2011 to 2015. She describes sweeping her front porch to remove coal dust and prevent tracking it into her home. In this testimony, Creasy, who works for the Sierra Club on local environmental justice issues, also discusses spending time at the Whitehurst Beach near the coal piers as a student and seeing coal on the park benches and in the sand.
Carl Poole was born in Germany in 1975 where his mother was stationed with the U.S. Army, and spent most of his childhood in Virginia before returning again as an adult. Poole’s great-aunt, aunt, and cousins grew up in Lambert’s Point in Norfolk, and he recalls seeing coal dust on the exterior of their houses as a child. Poole began working for the New Virginia Majority in 2022 on environmental justice advocacy.
Track 1: In this June 2023 testimony, Poole reflects on his year working at the Wastewater Treatment Plant, 15 yards away from the Norfolk Southern Coal Yard in Lambert’s Point, and the impact the dust had on him on a daily basis. This testimony includes descriptions of his cousins’ experiences with bronchitis. He also mentions how residents of Lambert’s Point were displaced through eminent domain when the city of Norfolk built a water reservoir, and how the community has been neglected in city services, including street cleaning. Poole describes gentrification caused by Old Dominion University, and reflects upon how residents in the area have not felt heard on issues of environmental hazards or housing justice.
Track 2: This oral history traces Poole’s family history, including his grandmother’s experience raising seven children in Norfolk’s public housing, many of whom went on to attend college and start businesses in the area. Poole discusses the white-led campaigns resisting integration in Norfolk public schools in the 1950s and 60s, as well as the impact busing had on the Black community. Poole reflects on his middle school years in a majority-white community in Indiana, and his experience returning to Hampton Roads to join the Army in 1994. The interview includes discussions of the Obama presidency, the Trump election, his organizing work in 2020, and his goals for Black civic involvement in Norfolk.
Javon Bennett was born in 1990 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and lives in Hampton, Virginia. Beginning in 2020, he started working as an organizer for New Virginia Majority on food insecurity, environmental racism, and housing discrimination issues. His work allows him to observe how the coal piers in Norfolk and Newport News impact the daily lives of residents.
Track 1: In this June 2023 testimony to the EPA, Bennett discusses how coal dust settles on windows, children’s clothing, garden beds, and cars in Lambert’s Point and the East End of Newport News. He discusses his own experience struggling to breathe during a hot summer day canvassing in Lambert’s Point, as well as the long term health impacts, including chronic asthma and bronchitis, and financial expenses that burden those he has met through his environmental justice work. He urges the EPA to visit these communities to witness these hazards first-hand.
Track 2: In this oral history, Bennett reflects on his experience growing up in the 1990s in Philadelphia and how his experience navigating trash pollution and discrimination within his classroom led him to his organizing work today. After moving to Newport News when his mother started a job at the shipyard, Bennett worked on environmental justice issues and for mutual aid organizations with Tidewater Tenants Rights. This interview includes his reflections on urban violence, houselessness, food insecurity, and the persistent costs of coal dust for residents living near coal piers in the Hampton Roads region.
Keela Boose is an English Professor at Norfolk State University and a self-described “child of historically Black colleges and universities.” Born in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1958, Booses’s parents taught Education and Psychology at Grambling State University, Alabama State College, and later, Norfolk State. In this 2023 interview, Boose discusses the mentors who inspired her love of reading. She recalls the social and political contexts of Civil Rights-era Montgomery, Alabama, and her memories growing up in what was then a racially-mixed neighborhood of Campostella Heights in the Southside of Norfolk. Boose pursued college and graduate work at Alcorn State University in Mississippi and at Northern Illinois University. The interview was conducted in her home along the Elizabeth River, which her parents bought in 1966 and she later inherited. In the interview, she describes how sea level rise and the practices of developers buying rights to the water has impacted the shoreline of her neighborhood.
Wayne Jones worked in the Norfolk area for over 46 years, including as a Lambert’s Point shipyard worker and as a civil servant worker with the Naval Base. In this July 2023 testimony directed to the EPA, Mr. Jones discusses the presence of coal dust from Norfolk Southern trains and how the dust impacts the groundwater, soil, air and as a result, the people in Lambert’s Point and the greater Norfolk Area. He urges the EPA to listen to community members and hold Norfolk Southern accountable.
