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Alexander Fella is a professor of Anthropology at Christopher Newport University. This conversation focuses on Fella’s writing and research on rent, section eight housing vouchers, evictions and home ownership in Norfolk.
Antipas Harris is a community leader with the Urban Renewal Center, a faith-led community organization. Harris discusses his experiences working at a homeless shelter in Norfolk, including the impacts of flooding on people experiencing homelessness in the city. Harris reflects on his role as a faith leader and the changing nature of the city.
Cassandra Newby-Alexander is a luminary historian of Black culture in the Tidewater area of Virginia, and Dean of the HBCU Norfolk State University, beginning in 2018. Chinedu Okala is a celebrated artist and Associate Dean of NSU at the time of this interview. Newby-Alexander discusses her experiences from childhood to adulthood with flooding in the city, illustrating her experiences with historical context around the City’s restriction Black residents’ housing. Okala discusses the history of race in the US and the current political climate.
Johnny Finn is an Associate Professor of Geography and Chair of the Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology at Christopher Newport University. In this interview, he connects his research on redlining in Hampton Roads to Norfolk’s city planning efforts in the face of sea-level rise.
Kim Sudderth is a community leader and advocate for racial justice with the Norfolk branch of the NAACP, and the first Black woman to serve as Vice Chair of the Norfolk Planning Commission, beginning in 2022. She was the Repair Lab’s inaugural Practitioner-in-Residence in 2021. Born in 1971, Sudderth grew up in Norfolk and spent some of her adult years in Virginia Beach before returning home to Norfolk.
Track 1: In this oral history, Sudderth discusses her childhood years growing up on the naval base near Ocean View in Norfolk, and her memories of her mother’s softball league. In her later adult years, Sudderth began advocating for environmental justice cases with Mothers Out Front. Sudderth shares her perspectives on power and change-making, and discusses the connected and widespread issues of housing and the environment, as well as the lessons she has learned through organizing.
Track 2: In this interview Sudderth discusses her experience with a representative of the city in conversation about the proposed downtown Norfolk seawall and the absence of structural mitigations for flooding for the predominantly Black Southside neighborhood, where she resides. Sudderth also addresses Norfolks’ Vision2100 document, a neighborhood planning guide created in response to forecasted sea-level rise and the resulting changes in the city’s geography.
Renee Hoyos is the former Environmental Justice director for Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), where she worked for 18 months between 2021-2022. This interview discusses her time with the agency, the limitations of the DEQ, and why she left her position.
Sharon Johnson is a lifelong resident of Norfolk, Virginia. She has lived in the Bruces’ Park neighborhood in midtown since 1954.
Track 1: This interview discusses Johnson’s life and family, including her grandfather who was a Black contractor in Norfolk in the early part of the 20th century. It takes place in Johnson’s historic home, built by her grandfather.
Track 2: In this oral history, Johnson describes her memories of downtown Norfolk in the 1950s, and key moments including President Kennedy’s assassination and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. Johnson graduated from Maury High in Norfolk in 1970, and reflects on the changes precipitated by integration, and her observations on race and discrimination while she lived in Boston. She discusses her participation in marches in Washington with the Service Employees International Union. The interview also includes a walking tour with Johnson as she describes the changes that have occurred in the neighborhood since the 1980s.
Skip Styles lives in Norfolk, Virginia and is retired from his position as Director of the environmental nonprofit Wetlands Watch, located in Norfolk, Virginia, where he served from 2006 to 2023. The conversation is about the initiatives Styles pioneered through Wetlands Watch, including rolling easements and riparian buffers, that aim to reduce the harm of sea-level rise in Hampton Roads.
Vincent Hodges is a social worker and worked as an organizer between 2021-2022 with New Virginia Majority, a nonprofit focused on racial and economic justice in Virginia. Hodges discusses his firsthand experiences working with residents in St Paul’s, a public housing complex in Norfolk. He discusses the state of public housing infrastructure, his concerns about working with Norfolk City Council for resolution, and his perspective on the political climate of the City.
