Rally calls for end to racism
Demonstrators call for changes at local level
Dozens of people — police officers, a councilman, Christopher Newport University students and other community members — rallied Friday night in front of Newport News City Hall to call for an end to racism and injustice.
The rally, which was promoted under the name “March against Racism and Injustice at Newport News City Hall,” was to honor the 57th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil Rights Movement March and call for local changes.
“We need to have an America, a Virginia and a Newport News that works for everyone and gives everyone a voice,” Councilman David Jenkins said.
In previous years, Andrew Shannon, who is president of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, traveled with others to Washington to commemorate the anniversary.
“Today we came to Newport News because we have some issues and concerns,” Shannon said.
He led the crowd in calling for the renaming of Wickham Avenue, which is named for Williams Carter Wickham, a general for the Confederate Army and a politician who owned a plantation and enslaved people.
Jenkins said he is “100% in favor of renaming Wickham Avenue.”
The councilman previously led the call for the removal of the Confederate monument in front of the old Warwick County Courthouse in the Denbigh area of Newport News.
“Newport News has some great people here who are deserving of the kind of honor of having a street named for them,”
“I think Newport News can be a landmark — a foundation — for change as we work together to sit down and talk about concerns, issues and the things we want to see.”
— Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew
Jenkins said.
He then recommended — to applause — the road be named after Congressman Bobby Scott, Virginia’s first Black congressman since Reconstruction.
Throughout the night, speakers also addressed police brutality — the focus of many local and national protests since George Floyd, a Black man, was killed in Minnesota during an arrest in late May.
“One thing that I’ve gathered from doing all of the research, from listening to the stories from my family, is that the Civil Rights Movement has not ended — it is far from over,” said 22-year old Blakely Lockhart.
Lockhart, a senior at CNU, said she’s grown up in a time in which people her age were killed for “nothing other than their skin color.” She read several names of the victims of police brutality before saying she could spend all night doing so.
Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew also addressed the crowd, saying that his commitment to the city is that the department will treat everyone the same, regardless of their skin color, age, zip code or income. He said all new recruits spend a week outside the classroom focused on learning the community they serve.
“I think Newport News can be a landmark — a foundation — for change as we work together to sit down and talk about concerns, issues and the things we want to see,” Drew said. “I want to make sure that it’s very clear that this police department here is your department.”
Shannon said organizers also were calling for the removal of photos of “segregationist” mayors from City Council chambers. In a list provided to the Daily Press, Shannon identified more than 18 Newport News mayors, including those from July 1896 to June 1962.
Lockhart spoke about her frustration that not all Newport News council members voted to remove the Confederate monument — Councilwoman Pat Woodbury voted against it and compared the removal to erasing history.
Lockhart said she’s proud of the wave of activism she’s seen lately.
“We are witnessing 400 years of frustration, and anger, and hatred, and fear,” Lockhart said. “We are witnessing the revival of the Civil Rights Movement because — once again — it never ended.”