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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
