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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.
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.
These are two recordings from 2022-09-07 made at the Bremo Enslaved Cemetery, Upper Bremo Farm, Fluvanna County, Virginia. The video includes two letters, one from Liberia to the former Bremo plantation written by Peyton Skipwith (1834) and the other coming from Lower Bremo former plantation to Liberia by Jack Creasy (1840). Both men were enslaved at the former Bremo plantations in the early 19th century. The Creasy letter is read by Horace Scruggs of the Fluvanna Historical Society and descendant of the Bremo enslaved. The Skipwith letter is read by Thomas Nynweph Gmawlue Jr, visiting student from Liberia participating in UVA Landscape Architecture class ALAR 8993 : Cultural Landscape Networks Across the Black Atlantic, lead by Professor Allison James. The readings were done as part of a collaborative field trip between ALAR 8993, ARH 5600 : 3D Cultural Heritage Informatics, lead Professor Will Rourk of the UVA Library and the Fluvanna Historical Society. Sources for the letter were provided by Tricia Johnson, executive director of the Fluvanna Historical Society. The source of the Creasy letter is from the Fluvanna Historical Society Bremo papers and the Skipwith letter is from UVA Library Special Collections.
This is a rendered flythrough animation of the 3D data collected and processed for the former Midloch Plantation enslaved dwelling. Produced from 3d data collected with FARO Focus 3D laser scanners on 2023-03-28 and rendered using Autodesk ReCap Pro v. 2023.
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.
Balogun, Arafat Yinka, Cantarella, Claudia, Cole, Montina, Fort, Ann, Lewis Lee, Tonya, Lewis, Shireen, Cleary Lofton, Deborah, Preston, Tracy
Summary:
Oral history interview with Virginia Law Women members and leadership from 1986 to 1992, including Arafat Yinka Balogun ’89, Claudia Cantarella ’91, Montina Cole ’91, Ann Fort ’91, Tonya Lewis Lee ’91, Shireen Lewis ’89, Deborah Cleary Lofton ’92, and Tracy Preston ’91. The group discusses student activism, the curriculum, and building community at the Law School.
Oral interview of Catharina Min, class of 1990, co-founder of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA), who discusses her time at UVA Law and the founding of APALSA.
