Pair filled Portsmouth with ‘love and pride’
City naming rec center after Black women who helped integrate youth activities
PORTSMOUTH — At the height of segregation in the 1950s, participants at playgrounds and recreational centers across Portsmouth didn’t interact with each other — and opportunities for Black youth were lacking.
But Ruth Hendricks dedicated a 35-year career in the city’s Parks and Recreation Department to help change that — starting from the trunk of her car, she ultimately organized the area’s first multicultural, citywide horseshoe tournament at Port Norfolk. She’s also credited with helping organize the first Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, the nation’s oldest amateur basketball tournament.
And as a foster parent, she mentored more than 60 children, including Florence Kendall, a protégé who continued Hendricks’ work in fundraising, strengthening recreational programs and helping create educational opportunities for Portsmouth’s Black communities.
Now the city is working to honor the two African American trailblazers by renaming the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center in the Douglas Park and Truxton neighborhood to the Hendricks/ Kendall Recreation Center. The Parks and Recreation Commission and the City Council unanimously approved the request, which came from Portsmouth resident George E. Eason Jr. and Kendall’s daughter, Jacqueline. The center is at 12 Grand St.
Jacqueline Kendall said when Hendricks would see youth gathered somewhere, she’d pull construction paper and popsicle sticks out of her trunk and tell them it’s time for crafts. Other times, she’d pull out a basketball or baseball and play ball with them.
Hendricks took Florence Kendall under her wing when Kendall was a guard on a traveling women’s basketball team. Jacqueline Kendall said they played in places like New York and Philadelphia, along with visits to historically Black colleges.
Florence Kendall honed the programming skills she learned from Hendricks and eventually went on to run the Douglas Park Community Center and supervise the Port Norfolk Recreation Center. The duo helped organize charity events such as March of Dimes and toy drives, as well as festivals and summer beach trips.
They also helped integrate the city by organizing the first horseshoe tournament in Port Norfolk, which anchored other activities such as softball, frisbee and talent shows.
Eason said both women taught young people about life and the world. He said they’d often use money from their own pockets to help children in need and would take in many themselves.
“Amazing how someone could do so much with so little,” Eason said.
“They gave a lot of themselves to the youth.”
Jacqueline Kendall said the John F. Kennedy center in Douglas Park was special to her mother — it’s where she worked the longest. Jacqueline Kendall recalls walking there many times after school, and said her mother is “synonymous” with that center.
She added that when recently digging through a box of her mother’s items, she discovered that Florence Kendall had been working to request that the center be named after Hendricks. So naming the center after both women feels right, she said.
“These two trailblazers paved the way to recreate and unite Portsmouth,” Jacqueline Kendall said. “They worked to make Portsmouth better. A place filled with love and pride.”