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I grew up under racial segregation

EddMarkStarr

EddMarkStarr

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My hometown of Norfolk, Virginia, continued racial segregation of its population well into 1965. But the presence of the U.S. Navy resulted in the local government treading lightly, while looking the other way. That tension between the military and southern culture allowed the black community in Norfolk to thrive in a way you had to see to believe.

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I only recently found out that the local black newspaper in Norfolk, "The New Journal and Guide", began in the year 1900 - making it one of the oldest black owned newspapers still in circulation in the country. And from that newspaper I discovered just how widespread and influential the Norfolk area black community really was, before and after 1965.

The real message I want to share with you guys is that, for me, growing up in Norfolk was both lively and dynamic. There was very little that I would call oppressive. All around me was proof that people are just people, and there's plenty to be happy about when you look in the past and see Scandinavian, European and British influences all around the Tidewater area.



When it came to black history, you guys would have just loved my grandma and her generation in the Norfolk area.
They celebrated everything with proper tea and biscuits. "Lemon, sugar, black, or white?" :D

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^ Ditto your remark.

When I read the title of the thread, I was worried what I would find when I opened it. I was pleasantly surprised. And I love the NJG's motto (if it is the motto), History Is Our Journey.
 
Glad to hear it. Just wish that hundreds of thousands of black men in America could have had the same experience.
 
Can't count the number of people I've shocked when I tell them that my early life was not limited in any way I experienced. Thanks to the presence of the U.S. Navy, Norfolk was filled with people from around the country and around the world. The area schools were a mix of kids from Asia, South America, Europe and Great Britain.

In 1966, I was sent to a formally all-white school. It was there that a kid from Bristol and another kid from Birmingham taught all the guys during recess the basics of real football. And that's what we called it. Only later did my older cousin tell me, "that was soccer, not football". Hey, I called it "fun".
 
I am glad to hear the positive. My town integrated schools when I was in the 4th grade, about 1971 or so. The early redistricting was found non-compliant. I went through a series of very different schools from the first to the fifth grades. We were poor, so we went to the rougher schools after first grade anyway, but the integration involved some bullying, but not severe.

We really didn't have a bad time coming together on the whole. Having taught in three different school systems in the 80's & 90's, we really were not all that bad in the 70's.

Poverty was the big problem, not race. All of us poor kids had it tough. Real tough.
 
That reminds me of something a good friend of my dad once said, "I see a lot of poor people, but they're not pitiful".

Some black areas had shocking levels of poverty, until you start talking to the residents. People in the Tidewater region had an inner liveliness that made any hints of poverty seem to evaporate. The truly poor and the privileged interacted to a degree I just don't see in places like Seattle today.
 
FPNY said:
My Dad was in the Navy until I was 9, we moved around a lot and were exposed to all sorts of people just like you, but ended back in Yonkers, NY where my parents came from.
Click to expand...

Are you still in Yonkers now? (Your profile says you live just north of NYC.)
 
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