Pilot Media - African American Today 2017

AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY

The long road to Mayor Kenny Alexander began with pioneers who paved the way for change.

2 | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY

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elcome to the 2017 edition of African American Today.

This past year we celebrated the historic election of Kenny Alexander, Norfolk’s first African American mayor. In this issue we discuss the pioneers who paved the way for his success, discuss what political challenges lie ahead and how best to overcome them.

In many ways, the Alexander piece is the kind of story our publication was created to tell.

Twenty-three years ago Randy Hargrave, then a Pilot sales manager, had an idea for a publication dedicated to the Hampton Roads African American community.

Those were the salad days. Newspapers were flush with cash and management was tripping over itself to find new places to sell ads. Still, Hargrave had to wait two years before his idea would come to life.

The Pilot launched African American Today in 1996 with cover art by Ken Wright and a series of compelling stories, including one on the Suffolk Normal Training School. The publication was an immediate hit.

“I just knew it would do well, and it did, right out of the gate,” Hargrave said. “And we never looked back.”

African American Today has told many powerful stories through the years, including: 2001’s “Arc of a Diver,” a profile of Carl Brashear, who came to fame after his story was the source for “Men of Honor,” a film starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Robert De Niro.

2004’s “New Act for a Historic Venture,” which gave readers a historic look at the Crispus Attucks Theatre, a thriving showpiece for Norfolk that has hosted such luminaries as Louis Armstrong and Count Basie.

2006’s “The Seventeen,” which told the story of the first African American students to integrate Norfolk’s public schools.

2007’s “Spirited Away on the Power of Words,” a story that discussed the poetry of Tim Seibles, now the state’s Poet Laureate.

These are just a few of the stories African American Today has shared, and we know Hampton Roads has many more. We look forward to bringing them to you. Thanks for reading.

African American Today 1996

– Clay Barbour, Editor

RoseAndWomble.com

what’s inside

about the section

3

Museums add to collections

editor

5

Calendar

Clay Barbour, clay.barbour@pilotonline.com

6

The Long Road to Kenny Alexander

reporter

13 Q&A with Vivian J Paige

Denise Watson, denise.watson@pilotonline.com

14 Other area trailblazers

business development manager Alan Levenstein, alan.levenstein@pilotonline.com

AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | 3

Museums bump up their collections The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg have diversified their collections over the past few years to better represent the contribution of African Americans to our culture.

In the past six months officials for the two museums have acquired several significant pieces, including the country’s most extensive collection of pre-Revolutionary woodworking planes made

by African-American artisan Cesar Chelor, a work bag made in 1827 by the Birmingham (England) Female Society for the Relief of British Negro Slaves, and a signed, ash-glazed stoneware storage jar made in 1849 by the enslaved African-American potter, David Drake.

“Colonial Williamsburg has long believed that art and artifacts speak loudly about the people, places, and events of the past,” said Ronald L. Hurst, chief curator and vice president for collections, conservation, and museums.

“Because we strive to tell the broader American story, it is important that we continue to seek out those objects that speak to the African-American experience during the colonial and early national periods. These newly acquired works address that mission handsomely.”

The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg include the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum and the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg are located at the intersection of Francis and South Henry Streets in Williamsburg, Va., and are entered through the Public Hospital of 1773.

Museum hours through March 16: Sunday to Thursday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Friday to Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. After March 16, hours will be 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily.

In the past six months officials for the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum and the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum have acquired several new pieces by prominent African Americans, including some pre-Revolutionary woodworking planes, a work bag made in 1827 and a storage jar made in 1849.

4 | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY

AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | 5

CALENDAR: BLACK HISTORY MONTH

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Here are some South Hampton Roads events celebrating Black History Month:

Feb. 19

Feb. 23

African American Film Series: “Freedom Summer.” Discussion follows. 3 p.m. Meyera E. Oberndorf Central Library, 4100 Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach. Free. 385-0150.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Recognition Program. 5:30 p.m. TCC Norfolk Campus Student Center, 310 Granby St. RSVP at www.tcc.edu/mlk.

Special Gallery Talk: Contemporary African American Artists. 2-3 p.m. Includes guided tour. Chrysler Museum of Art, One Memorial Place, Norfolk. Free. 664-6200; www.chrysler.org.

“Mighty Times: The Children’s March,” short film. 3 p.m. Feb. 23. Van Wyck Branch Library, 1368 DeBree Ave., Norfolk. For teens and adults. 441-2844.

Feb. 20 Works Progress Administration Original Gardeners: The Role of African American Women in the Norfolk Botanical Gardens.

Part of Black History Month Brown Bag Lunch Series. Noon. Norfolk State University, 700 Park Ave., Student Center, Room 138A. Free. For info, email prlaws@ nsu.edu or komiller@nsu.edu. 823-2864.

Feb. 21 Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University in New Orleans, serves as keynote speaker for Tidewater Community College’s Black History Month celebration.

12:30 p.m. TCC Norfolk Campus Student Center, 310 Granby St. 822-7296; intercultural@tcc.edu.

Therbia Parker Talk and African American History Exhibit. 2 p.m. Phillips-Dawson House, home of the Suffolk-Nansemond Historical Society, 137 Bank St., Suffolk.

Free. suffolkpubliclibrary.libcal.com/ event/2958869.

“Impact of the Obama Administration on the African American Experience.”

Presented by Norfolk State University’s Political Science Department. 12:30 p.m.

NSU, 700 Park Ave., Student Center, Room 138B. Info: email rwilson@nsu.edu.

Akindra Symbols Craft Night, an evening of crafts using African symbols. All ages welcome. 4-5 p.m. Major Hillard Library, 824 Old George Washington Hwy N., Chesapeake. Register at events.infopeake. org.

“Ruined,” drama set in a Democratic Republic of Congo mining town. 7 p.m.

Feb. 23-24; 3 and 7 p.m. Feb. 25. Norfolk State University’s Brown Hall Theatre, intersection of Corprew Avenue at Marathon Avenue. Enter campus from Gate 3. Ticket info: 823-9009 or nsuspartanstickets.com.

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Feb. 25 Bright Star Theatre Presents: Black History Hall of Fame. 1 and 3 p.m.

Children’s Museum of Virginia, 221 High St., Portsmouth. Included with museum admission. 393-5258; childrensmuseumvirginia.com.

25th annual African-American History Month Quiz Bowl. Teams compete in a Jeopardy-style match. 10:30 a.m. Slover Library, Room 650, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk.

664-7323.

Feb. 26 I. Sherman Greene Chorale. 4 p.m. Slover Library, Room 650, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk.

664-7323.

HBCU Choral Festival. Event features the university choirs of Claflin, Elizabeth City State, Hampton and Norfolk State. 5 p.m.

L. Douglas Wilder Performing Arts Center, 700 Park Ave., No. 111, Norfolk. No children under 8. Tickets: $10-$25. nsuchoirs.com; 823-8529.

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6 | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY

The Long Road to Kenny Alexander

By Denise M. Watson The Virginian-Pilot

In June of 1946,

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTO

Victor Ashe

Victor Ashe was a respected attorney, a WWII veteran and a candidate for the Norfolk City Council. But even with impressive credentials, experience and a great reputation, his defeat was a given.

That’s because Ashe was an African American running for office in a town that hadn’t elected one in the 20th century. In fact, Ashe was the first to even try.

He had deep pockets, and the support of people with money, but this was Norfolk, where Ashe still had to ride in the back of city buses and was not even allowed inside many stores on Granby Street.

His efforts, however, were not in vain. If you look closely, you can follow the line from Ashe’s failed bid for council to the victory party held some 70 years later at the Wyndham Garden hotel, where hundreds of ecstatic supporters gathered to celebrate the election of Kenny Alexander, the city’s first African American mayor.

Alexander achieved the milestone with relative ease, receiving more than twice the number of votes of his two opponents, but he would be the first to say that his election was made possible by trailblazers like Ashe – political pioneers who knew the real victory would be enjoyed by future generations.

When asked on election night about the significance of his win, Alexander told the Pilot, “It speaks to Norfolk. It speaks to who we are. We are a diverse community. We are a city of firsts.”

So, let’s start with the first.

CHRYSTAL CULBERT

Kenny Alexander was elected Norfolk Mayor May 3 2016.

AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | 7

Victor Ashe graduated from St. Joseph’s, a Catholic School for African Americans on Brambleton Avenue. He later studied at then-Villanova College in Pennsylvania, before earning his law degree from Howard University in 1940. He started his law practice in Norfolk in 1942 and then served in the Navy from 1944-45.

Howard, among the most famous Historically Black Colleges and Universities, is renowned for producing a legion of civil rights attorneys who played significant roles in overturning segregation laws across the country, such as Thurgood Marshall and Oliver Hill. In fact, Ashe would go on to file the 1956 lawsuit to desegregate Norfolk Public Schools and work with Hill on the case.

But in 1946, despite his qualifications, the white establishment would give him only a courtesy nod. Then-Councilman Richard W. Ruffin told a black audience at Willard Junior High that Ashe was a “credit to his race,” but “his election would be injurious to his race as well as to that of the white population.”

Most of the black community mobilized and urged people to use “single-shot” voting, where voters instead of casting ballots for more than one open seat, cast a single ballot – in this case for Ashe. He still lost, but the establishment paid close attention.

Voters came out in record numbers and Ashe received about 18 percent of the vote, coming in seventh in a field of nine.

“While the vote received by Mr. Ashe was cast predominantly by members of his own race, he also received some votes in every one of the 37 precincts in

But in 1946, despite his qualifications, the white establishment would give him only a courtesy nod. ThenCouncilman Richard W. Ruffin told a black audience at Willard Junior High that Ashe was a “credit to his race,” but “his election would be injurious to his race as well as to that of the white population.”

the city, several of which were given him by white voters,” according to a Journal and Guide article.

In precinct 21A, which was mostly black, the ticket that included Ruffin didn’t get one vote. Of the 226 votes in the precinct, Ashe got 209. It was enough to pitch Ruffin out of office.

Attorney Joseph A. Jordan, who would work with Ashe on the local school desegregation suit, was also a fighter. And like Ashe, he was a veteran.

A 1939 graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, Jordan had stepped on a mine during the war and returned home paralyzed from the waist down.

After recovering at a veterans’ hospital, he finished his studies at Richmond’s Virginia Union University and then went on to get his law degree from Brooklyn Law School in New York City.

Jordan returned to Norfolk ready to fight the system.

He would say in later interviews that he was disgusted by the city’s politics, “the vehicle which the so-called power structure uses to keep us in our place.”

He quickly went after the city’s poll tax and voting hurdles. Election workers were allowed to ask ridiculous questions of people registering to vote. For example, if prospective voters were not able to interpret dense paragraphs from the state’s constitution, they could be denied the right to vote.

In Virginia, they also had to pay poll taxes of $1.50 a year, the equivalent of $12.50 in today’s dollars, plus any penalties and interest.

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTO

Continued on page 10

Joseph A. Jordan, a veteran of World War II, was elected to the Norfolk City Council in 1968.

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AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | 9

8 | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY

TIMELINE 1870

1880

1890

1900

1910

1920

1870

1902

1918

1946

1966

The city votes four African Americans to City Council, including Joseph T. Wilson, who served for the Union during the Civil War and later published an AfricanAmerican newspaper, and Thomas F. Paige, owner of the first hotel for African Americans.

The Virginia Constitutional Convention creates various tactics to disenfranchise African Americans, though they also affect poor whites. A poll tax was required to register and an “understanding clause” instituted.

The clause allowed registrars to require a prospective voter to interpret any section of the state constitution on demand before deeming someone eligible to vote.

Norfolk switches from wards to an atlarge voting system.

Attorney Victor Ashe becomes the first African American to run for City Council in the 20th century.

The United States Supreme Court rules that poll taxes are unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, included a lawsuit by Norfolk resident Evelyn Butts, represented by attorney Joseph Jordan, who challenged the law.

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

HAMPTON ROADS LARGEST DEALER.

1990

2010

Kenneth Alexander is elected mayor.

Joseph Jordan is successfully elected to City Council. He becomes vice mayor in 1972.

1983

1977

Evelyn T. Butts, civil rights activist

2000

2016

1968

Herbert Collins joins several residents in a lawsuit that challenges Norfolk’s at-large system.

1984 Rev. John Foster is elected to City Council.

1989

Rev. Joseph Green, a school board member, is selected to fill Jordan’s City Council seat when Jordan becomes a judge.

The United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, rules in favor of Collins. Norfolk switches to a ward system in 1992. Soon after, Norfolk has three African Americans on its council.

Norfolk City Councilman Herbert Collins October 11, 1994.

Victor Ashe, 1972

1980

2006 Norfolk switches to directly elected mayor system. Mayors had been selected by council members previously.

STEVE EARLEY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

Kenny Alexander acknowledges supporters as he wins the election for mayor of Norfolk on Tuesday, May 3, 2016, in Norfolk.

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AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | 9

8 | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY

TIMELINE 1870

1880

1890

1900

1910

1920

1870

1902

1918

1946

1966

The city votes four African Americans to City Council, including Joseph T. Wilson, who served for the Union during the Civil War and later published an AfricanAmerican newspaper, and Thomas F. Paige, owner of the first hotel for African Americans.

The Virginia Constitutional Convention creates various tactics to disenfranchise African Americans, though they also affect poor whites. A poll tax was required to register and an “understanding clause” instituted.

The clause allowed registrars to require a prospective voter to interpret any section of the state constitution on demand before deeming someone eligible to vote.

Norfolk switches from wards to an atlarge voting system.

Attorney Victor Ashe becomes the first African American to run for City Council in the 20th century.

The United States Supreme Court rules that poll taxes are unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, included a lawsuit by Norfolk resident Evelyn Butts, represented by attorney Joseph Jordan, who challenged the law.

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

HAMPTON ROADS LARGEST DEALER.

1990

2010

Kenneth Alexander is elected mayor.

Joseph Jordan is successfully elected to City Council. He becomes vice mayor in 1972.

1983

1977

Evelyn T. Butts, civil rights activist

2000

2016

1968

Herbert Collins joins several residents in a lawsuit that challenges Norfolk’s at-large system.

1984 Rev. John Foster is elected to City Council.

1989

Rev. Joseph Green, a school board member, is selected to fill Jordan’s City Council seat when Jordan becomes a judge.

The United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, rules in favor of Collins. Norfolk switches to a ward system in 1992. Soon after, Norfolk has three African Americans on its council.

Norfolk City Councilman Herbert Collins October 11, 1994.

Victor Ashe, 1972

1980

2006 Norfolk switches to directly elected mayor system. Mayors had been selected by council members previously.

STEVE EARLEY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

Kenny Alexander acknowledges supporters as he wins the election for mayor of Norfolk on Tuesday, May 3, 2016, in Norfolk.

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10 | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY

In 1963, Jordan represented Evelyn Butts in a lawsuit against the poll tax. The two had been members of a group called the “Third Force,” the huge chunk of people who couldn’t vote because of the tax and the other tactics. Butts could not afford the fees. She worked out of her home, caring for three children and husband who was a disabled vet.

Lower courts shot down the case, but it was later consolidated into a similar petition by a group of citizens in Fairfax County. In 1966, Jordan appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled the state law was unconstitutional.

“I never looked on the case as a certainty,” Jordan told a reporter after the victory, “but there was never a doubt in my mind that the law was wrong.”

After his victory, Jordan returned to politics. He had already launched three failed bids for office – once for the House of Delegates and twice for City Council – when in 1968 he again set his sights on a council seat.

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE PHOTO

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UNKNOWN

Evelyn Butts. Participant in Poll Tax Tests. Mrs. Evelyn Butts of Norfolk, Va., poses outside the Supreme Court Building.

Ellis James, a white man, campaigned with his wife and children on behalf of Jordan. And though Jordan was fearless, James said in a recent interview that he himself was not. He worried Jordan was too easy a target for the rabid racists whom he liked to call “the pointy-heads.”

AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | 11

James remembered pushing his candidate into forum at an unfriendly Ocean View bar. “No black candidate had been in the hotbed of segregation and as soon as we walked in, someone yelled, ‘Who let the nigger in?!’” James said.

Jordan ignored the comment and went on to become the first African American elected in the city in the 20th century. That same year William P. Robinson, then-chair of the political science department at Norfolk State College, joined an integrated ticket with three white Democrats and was elected to the House of Delegates, the first African American since Reconstruction elected to state office in Virginia.

Meanwhile, other cities were also diversifying their councils, including Hugo Owens Sr. and W.P. Clarke Sr. in Chesapeake and Jessie Rattley in Newport News.

James recalled how a younger set of activists, including James F. Gay Sr., a lawyer and perennial thorn in the side of Norfolk’s establishment, came to seek Jordan’s counsel.

Jordan had become something of a political heavyweight, eventually reaching the position of vice mayor.

Younger African Americans looked up to the pioneer. And while Jordan did not support a proposed ward system (he believed they did guarantee spots for minorities, but also created silos), he still supported the younger generation, even the more boisterous Gay who, while in high school, went toe to toe with then Mayor Roy Martin at a City Council meeting.

“Joe told them this movement belongs to you all. I’m not going to tell you how to do it,” James said.

The problem with Norfolk’s political system, in the eyes of many, was that its at-large election process allowed the city’s (predominantly white and rich) west side to control the council and its purse, essentially freezing out the African American community, as well as the blue collar east and north sides.

Under the system, residents voted for council members no matter where they lived. With whites vastly outnumbering African Americans, a simple majority rule vote would prevent them from fair representation.

With a ward system, the city would be divided into

evenly populated slices with people voting on candidates in their districts. With the city’s housing patterns, three of the seven potential wards would have black majorities.

It’s not hard to see how that would help add African American voices to the council, thus possibly altering the influence. That was certainly the thinking in 1983 when Herbert Collins, a Norfolk grocer, joined Gay and several others in a lawsuit against the at-large election system.

The seven-year fight known as Collins v. City of Norfolk is to this day considered the final breach in the dam of Norfolk politics.

Collins, who died in 2007, and Gay both launched unsuccessful bids for council seats in 1982. At the time, only three African Americans (all men) had been elected in some 20 years, despite African Americans accounting for 35 percent of the city’s population. Those who did get elected needed the blessing of city’s white leadership.

Gay said at the time, “It confirmed in my mind that we had racially polarized voting.”

Gay enlisted the NAACP and a Washington, D.C., vot-

ing rights group and challenged the at-large system, arguing that it diluted the black vote and violated the Voting Rights Act. The ward system wasn’t a new idea for the city. It operated under one until 1918. A return to it would also allow working-class areas such as Ocean View and Bayview to have a council voice, so the suit had white supporters from those neighborhoods.

The lawsuit faced a brutal

climb. It lost in the U.S. District Court and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. But in 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court reignited a sense of hope when it sent the case back to lower courts for review. It was juggled on the federal level until 1990, when the 4th Court of Appeals finally ruled in favor of the local grocer and his group.

With the new system in place by 1994, Collins was

Continued on next page

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Herbert M Collins, Norfolk City Councilman representing Ward 3.

elected, along with funeral owner and operator Paul Riddick and W. Randy Wright, a white business owner from Ocean View.

The mayoral title would be voted on, as it had been, by council members. Norfolk residents wouldn’t start electing their mayor until 2006. Collins eventually climbed to vice mayor but was unseated in 2002.

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12 | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY

Norfolk’s eight-member council now has four African American members, including Mayor Kenny Alexander.

It seems only fitting that Alexander is our first African American mayor, given that he was raised in a politically active family during the ‘60s.

His father, Dave Alexander, opened Metropolitan Funeral Home in the Berkley section of Norfolk in 1966 and quietly did his part in the growing political movement.

The first petition Kenny Alexander ever saw was when he was about 10 and a politician brought it into the funeral home to have the signatures notarized. Dave Alexander was a supporter of the cause and helped out however he could, from loaning out the funeral home’s car to picking up people from the airport to allowing meetings to be held on site.

Kenny Alexander’s grandmother was the secretary of the family’s church, Antioch Baptist. His grandmother always knew what was going on because she received the calls to schedule the campaign stops and meetings.

“You have to remember, churches, Masonic orders, funeral homes were the few places blacks could assemble and feel somewhat safe,” Kenny Alexander said.

Kenny Alexander carried the torch when he took over the funeral home business. When Barack Obama first ran for president in 2008 and came to the area, the Secret Service, Alexander said, needed large

Q&A

WITH VIVIAN J. PAIGE

istory was made this past May in Norfolk when Kenny AlexanH der was elected the city’s first AfCHRYSTAL CULBERT

Alexander, 50, recognizes the historic importance of his role as the first African American mayor. He says he is the benefactor of the efforts of those who came before him.

black umbrellas.

“Who did they call? The funeral home,” Alexander said.

“My engagement and my involvement has been since my youth.”

Joseph N. Green said times have changed enough that the city was ready for Alexander, a native son with a resume of community service and experience in the state legislature.

Green came to Norfolk in 1963 to accept the job as pas-

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tor’s seat at Grace Episcopal Church. When he arrived that August, he settled his family at the rectory and then hit the road to join thousands in the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Green, now 90, gained the attention of the city’s leadership and was handpicked by Jordan to serve on the school board in 1972. He said that Alexander had two things going for him: He was a successful businessman, having grown Metropolitan to be one of the most successful African American businesses in the state, with three local facilities and a crematorium; and he followed a series of African American politicians who spent the past seven decades smoothing out the pathway.

“What a perfect time for Kenny Alexander,” Green said.

Alexander, 50, recognizes the historic importance of his role but he doesn’t like to box himself into the title of Norfolk’s “first African American mayor.”

“I’m very proud of the fact,” he said. “But I have viewed myself as being a leader in the true sense of a leader in

that I try to bring out the best in people in the various social systems or groups I may be a part of.”

And while he received high vote tallies from predominantly African American precincts, he says he’s proud that his votes came from a “very diverse, very inclusive” map of people.

“It’s good to talk about black history as it relates to accomplishment,” but the support, he said, “didn’t all come from the African American community.”

He also recognizes that being accepted by a wide range of citizens and being able to even run came from the work of the Victor Ashe, Evelyn Butts, Joe Jordan, and many others.

“I’m very much a part of the movement, and I’m very much a beneficiary of those organizations and those efforts,” he said. “If it had not been for those who organized, advocated, demonstrated, protested and being active in civic life, addressing injustices and inequalities, I would not have the opportunities to serve in the various capacities. I’m very aware, and very much a part of those organizations. It is part of me.”

rican American mayor. For insight into the event we turned to Vivian Paige, Virginia Elector, author of the blog “All Politics is Local” and a guest columnist for The VirginianPilot.

We interviewed her after Alexander’s election and the presidential election. What started as a Q&A about an election ended up being a lesson on the importance of local politics.

Norfolk has the 14th largest African American population in the U.S. (representing fully 31 percent of the city). Why did it take so long for the city to elect its first African American mayor?

(Lots of laughter) Part of it has to do with the fact that Norfolk has a different kind of ruling class that is not necessarily inclusive. Norfolk actually did not evolve the same way as some of the other cities. It’s an older city, so it was much more difficult to penetrate the ruling class. It’s not like Virginia Beach, where there is a constant turnover of people.

That just doesn’t happen here. You have to be the “anointed one.”

What effect does race play in our current ward system?

Significant. Race is the basis of the ward system. Two wards were drawn to be majority white, two that were majority black and one that was a swing district (Ed. Note: We also have two super wards).

The ward system would not exist but for the outcome of the Collins vs.

City of Norfolk lawsuit that argued

AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | 13

that black representation on the city council was not representative of the population.

The system that was in place before, completely at-large, certainly made it such that it was very difficult for blacks to get elected and allowed five of our seven council members at time to come from the same neighborhood.

We go through redistricting in the year after the census, every 10 years.

This last time there was an effort to make the wards less race-based and it was just absolutely rebuffed by council … simply because “it’s better to maintain the status quo” and so that’s where we are today.

Did Super Ward 7 surprised you with a turnout of 27.6 percent in the election?

Yes, I predicted a lot lower than that, simply because the black vote seems to turn out lower.

Do you think that’s a new pattern for the city?

No. Let me be very clear. No. Why? The Obama effect? Turn out for the first African American candidate, but won’t turn out for the next election?

Or even the next black candidate.

The first one gets the more impassioned turnout. Three things made this election difficult to predict.

The first, that we had an opening for mayor for the first time in 30 years. Norfolk hasn’t been electing their mayor very long. Mayor Fraim served as elected mayor for 10 years.

So, we don’t have a lot of history on that.

The second was the fact that we had the school board elections, which we’ve never had before. So trying to predict the turnout was a whole lot of guesswork. (Ed. Note: In 2016, Norfolk transitioned back to an elected school board after more than 60 years of having city council appoint the seven members.)

Third, we never had a mayor’s race coincide with the super ward race.

Yes, you had some trends and some numbers but we never had this combination before. Nobody anticipated the turnout would be this high.

Well that’s a good first step, right?

It is, but what’s going to happen in two years? People don’t realize local elections are the basis for national, because they just move up the chain. It’s one of my pet peeves when I write my column in the Pilot. The reason you pay attention to local politics is because these folks start down here and then move up.

For 2016, if you were a resident of Norfolk, here you had primaries in March, local elections in May, primaries in June and then presidential and congressional elections in November.

You also had a firehouse primary in August if you lived in Ward 1. So you could have five or six elections in one year. So living in Virginia and only paying attention to national races means you’re missing a whole lot.

You have to have an interest in making our representative government work. These are OUR representatives and in order for them to truly represent us, we have to hold them accountable. That means you spend a little less time hanging out on Facebook and a little bit more time learning about how the system works.

If no other reason to get off FB is because of all the fake news. How do you determine what’s right or wrong?

Sometimes you have to stop and go back to basic civics and be able to say “all right maybe I don’t understand all the pieces of this and maybe I need to spend a little bit more time catching up before I start spouting off about foreign policy.

Do you have any recommendation of where people should go to start learning about local politics and educating themselves?

I would say watch your council meetings on television and see what decisions are being made. Young people tend to not think in terms of real estate tax being too high, for example, without realizing that it affects them as much as it affects someone who owns a house, because their rent is higher because of the fact that real estate taxes are higher.

The key of local politics in a nutshell is these people are closer to you and have much more effect on your everyday life. Your water bill is what it is because your city council sets that rate. Your phone and cable bill are what they are because your locality in Norfolk.

When you look at your bill and have all these taxes on there, Norfolk sets those utility rates. Who decides how much the food tax is going to be when you eat out at a restaurant? So when you’re worried about the fact that your salary does not cover all of your bills you need to be looking at the people making the decisions. Every transaction that you engage in is probably affected by local taxes and the people that make the decisions on those happen to be your city council.

The president is not doing that.

– Condensed and edited

by Siobhan Werhan

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Other African American trailblazers in our region James Holley Portsmouth Mayor

Portsmouth mayor Dr. James W. Holley III in 1984.

James Holley died in 2012 at the age of 85. His political career was memorable for its dramatic highs and dramatic lows. Holley joined another Portsmouth dentist, Hugo A. Owens, in several lawsuits in the 1950s and ’60s that eventually desegregated the city’s libraries, restaurants and integrated the staff at Portsmouth General Hospital.

In 1968, he became one of the first two African Americans to serve on the Portsmouth City Council since Reconstruction. He won the mayoral seat in 1984, becoming the first African American mayor in South Hampton Roads.

Holley was recalled in 1987 after being implicated in a hate-mail scandal. He was re-elected in 1996. Holley was again voted out of office in 2010 after it was reported that he used his city assistant for personal errands.

Mamie E. Locke.

Mamie Locke Hampton Mayor Mamie E. Locke, 62, became Hampton’s first African American woman mayor in 2000, after serving four years on city council. In 2003, she was elected to the State Senate for the second district, becoming the third African American woman to win a seat in the senate. Locke teaches political science at Hampton University, where’s she has been on the faculty since 1981.

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AFRICAN AMERICAN TODAY | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | 15

Dr. Yvonne B. Miller in 1987.

Yvonne B. Miller State Delegate, State Senator Yvonne B. Miller, a longtime educator in Norfolk, became the first African American woman elected to the state legislature in 1983 when she became a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. She was elected to the State Senate in 1987 and served there until her death in 2012 (the day before her 78th birthday).

Short in stature, fiery in speech, Miller was known as a relentless fighter for minorities and the poor.

Mayor Jessie M Rattley in 1988.

Jessie Rattley Newport News Mayor

William Ward Chesapeake Mayor

Jessie M. Rattley, who died in 2001 at the age of 71, became the first African American and first woman elected to Newport News City Council in 1970. In 1976, she was selected vice mayor, then in 1986 became mayor, the first woman and African American to hold that office as well.

Originally from Birmingham, Ala., Rattley came to present-day Hampton University for college and graduated in 1951. A teacher by profession, Rattley became active in civil rights and community work, which led to city politics. The Newport News municipal center is named after her.

William Ward, 83, was first elected to Chesapeake’s City Council in 1978 and was later appointed the city’s first African American mayor in 1990. He was reelected in 1992, 1996 and 2000. He stepped down in 2004. He taught history at Norfolk State University for close to 30 years and worked as NSU’s legislative liaison until 2014.

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