(ThyBlackMan.com) African American citizens of Newport News, the largest city on the richly endowed Virginia Peninsula area, succeeded in raising institutions that served their unique community needs despite facing restrictive conditions and huge odds against them. They cultivated ideals that demonstrated the positive aspects of human beings working together in a community setting. Because they were slave descendants, their accomplishments deserve recognition in the chronicles of recorded American history.
Beginning with second generation slave descendants around the turn of the 20th century, these individuals demonstrated a remarkable sense of caring and sharing for their own people. Beyond the staple of “Negro’ businesses and churches, Virginia Peninsula people of color engineered other ways to organize and sustain their community. They established hospitals, schools, community centers, legal practices, libraries, and other institutions that were dedicated to improving life for individual African American citizens and families in one of the most unique settings in America. Because of 
this and the waters that sustained them, their story reads like no other city in America does.
Not many miles north of Newport News sits Jamestown, where the earliest English settlement to survive in America began in 1607. It became part of what is known as the Historic Triangle, a geographic assembly of old towns that also includes Colonial Williamsburg and Yorktown. The three taken together with their joined histories gave birth to the rise of the new nation. Williamsburg played colonial capital to the prosperous Virginia colony from 1699 to 1770 until the Revolutionary War. With scores of original buildings and structures still standing, Colonial Williamsburg looks and feels like a super colossal year round history museum. Yorktown marks the location where General George Washington held off the British in 1781 in a resounding military land victory, thus paving the way for an independent nation free from control by the English crown. The state, like Massachusetts and Maryland, held high importance and status during the early years.
A peninsula is described as a land mass mostly surrounded by water and usually juts out into a larger body of water. The James River, York River, and the Chesapeake Bay are perfect illustrations. They nearly encircle the Virginia Peninsula with their brackish, dark, deep waters and pungent, salty sea smells leaving only a sliver of inhabitable ground for a population of about 500,000. These huge, accumulated masses of liquid serve as the lifeblood of the economy for the state’s entire southeast region. Notwithstanding shipbuilding and military bases, railroads and space exploration, fishing and water sports, transportation and tourism, and academia and historic preservation along with a host of other industries, this corner of America revels in its past. Residents understand the significance of living there and take pride in the heritage. There are no other comparisons to be found in the whole United States.
But a darker side exists to all this. Just ask Imam Muhammad Asadi, the leader of the Muslim community at Al Qubaa’ Islamic Centre Islamic Centre. He asserts that Newport News has been a closed environment to certain citizens notwithstanding the fact that it prides itself on being progressive and tourist-friendly. Surrounding municipalities on the Virginia Peninsula all welcome and court tourists to their historical venues, museums, recreational facilities, and other cultural sites. Further, he makes the claim that Newport News government, its tourism agency, and historical have selected their own versions of history, leaving out, of course, African American contributions to the city.
“The most important contributions of African Americans have been excluded,” he decries. “Advocating historical awareness is a medicine to heal the head wounds our people have suffered. I believe in freedom, justice, and historical equality for all.”
With pride and history, there comes the glory, the reaping of benefits such as economic development, and increased educational and social opportunity. In the Southeast District of Newport News, a thriving, intensely proud, conscientious African American community grew by the waters of the James River. Just like their European American counterparts, they too wanted a share of the bounty that the close proximity of sea and land offered. So, they created their own businesses and institutions to get what they felt God had given to all of them.
Staff Writer; Mu Octavis Taalib
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