Preserving Black history
Bill to mark Green Book sites is important, but more must be done
Sixty-three years isn’t such a long time. It’s shorter than the average life expectancy in the United States, for instance, meaning a great many people here in Hampton Roads remember how the region looked — and how people behaved — not so long ago.
Sixty-three years is also an eternity. Two generations have passed since then and it might as well be ancient history to children today, who never knew a time when telephones were plugged into the wall.
That dichotomy — of a period that is both firmly in the past but still vivid in our recollection — is no clearer than it is today as voices grow increasingly louder to marginalize Black voice, Black experiences and Black history.
Feb. 12 marks 63 years since 38 Black protesters staged a sit-in at the white-only lunch counter of the F.W. Woolworth Co. store at Granby and Freemason streets in Norfolk. They were students attending the Norfolk Division of Virginia State College, now Norfolk State University, who were moved by similar direct action taken in Greensboro, North Carolina, that began the lunch counter sit-in movement.
A day prior, students from the Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, organized a sit-in at the Woolworth on West Queens Way in downtown Hampton. It proceeded similarly — a refusal of service followed by a brief seated protest and a peaceful exit — as did a protest, also on Feb. 12, in Portsmouth organized by I.C. Norcom High School students.
As the sit-ins continued, there would be violence, beatings, arrests and other horrors inflicted upon those who stood up for equality and human dignity. These were pivotal events — milestones for freedom that happened in Virginia — yet there
is little mention at those sites to remind residents or inform visitors of what transpired. A plaque in Hampton notes the site’s significance, but it is an outlier.
So it is with Black history, both in Virginia and in this country. So much has been erased, forgotten or actively ignored.
Too little effort has been paid to its preservation, a subject to be confined to February’s Black History Month. There are still those who considered it an inconvenience, an affront or, worse, something to be feared and stricken from the schoolroom.
Hampton Roads had arguably done better than most places in its work to preserve and highlight Black history, though that can be credited more to the enormous weight and consequence of its landmarks than to any exceptional effort.
It was at Point Comfort in Hampton, after all, that the first enslaved Africans arrived in North America, and at Fort Monroe where runaway slaves from throughout the area received Union Army protection and their first taste of freedom. These are but two of many.
So it is important to see legislation in the General Assembly, sponsored by Newport News Del. Mike Mullin, that directs the Department of Historic Resources to coordinate the designation of markers at locations of “Green Book” destinations throughout the commonwealth.
During segregation, the Negro Motorist Green Book was a guide for navigating the Jim Crow South, telling motorists and travelers what hotels, restaurants, stores and services were welcoming to Black people.
The bill, which won unanimous passage in the House last month, should find favor in the Senate and has Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s support. It should be celebrated if and when it becomes law.
Yet, this comes against a backdrop of Black erasure — of Black stories stripped from history curricula, of outlandish panic over critical race theory, of efforts to roll back diversity and equity initiatives. And one bill, however valuable, is insufficient when matched against those pressures.
While we should not overlook or dismiss the tremendous progress made in the 63 years since the lunch counter protests, there remains much more to do to protect these memories, preserve this history and ensure the Black story of Virginia and America doesn’t fade with time.