(ThyBlackMan.com) America’s early Colonial roots began on the Virginian Peninsula. Africans and Europeans first worked together along the rivers and creeks to bring the English settlers’ first aspirations to realization. Success with the tobacco crop at Jamestown offered them psychic relief from the disaster of a lot of ‘what-ifs’ on one hand and limitless possibilities on the other.
Historical relationships between Blacks and Whites on the Peninsula were joined, yet separate, as in all such places where the two races converged, and always based upon a strict code of master and subject. A ‘separate joining’, we might say. Here, the Whites were inevitably empowered by their freedom, lighter skin, and easier access to the abundant resources provided by the nearby sea. Blacks had a weaker position from the start. They were subjected because of their darker skin and servile work statuses with little or no human or civil rights. The laws of the Peninsula always favored Whites.
To put it in perspective, the crowded Virginia Peninsula can be seen
as a dream place for cultural anthropologists who’d love to study this unique type of arrangement in America. It provides a clear example of how two different peoples evolved from a mutual beginning point and what happens when a dominant majority emerges to exercise unquestioned authority over a subjected minority. The Peninsula model takes on another dimension because of its role as the first permanent settlement of Europeans to survive and go on to make a nation from it.
Newport News, the Peninsula’s largest city, ideally fits the image of a bustling seaport town. Shipbuilding and navy vessels drive the economy, politics, and culture of this city of 183,000 persons, with 41 percent comprised of African American residents.1 The greater part, if not most, of the populace have ties to the shipyards. Since the late 1800’s, Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company shaped the way European Americans and African Americans interacted with and treated each other. The local economy has always been driven by the sheer numbers of its large workforce and its socioeconomic impact on local politics.
Imam Muhammad Asadi is the man today leading the charge for dedicating a historical quarter of Newport News to the memory of African American pioneers whose work improved the lives of the city’s underserved citizens. He calls it Legacy Square, only now in its architectural rendering stage. Imam Asadi solidly believes the contributions by African Americans to the City of Newport News have been neglected and downplayed. As one of the more prominent voices of the Black community, he asserts that a mentality exists which intentionally ignores African American interests, history, and culture.
“The elucidation of one’s history is akin to education, and education carries with it the power to change a person’s outlook on life. This is desperately needed in Newport News, especially among our youth. They need to know more about what those before them did and to take a certain pride in those accomplishments. Something to help them get off Chestnut Avenue, Jefferson Avenue, Marshall Court, Uptown, and all those sad kind of places.”
He frowned as he referred to a few of the major neighborhood hangouts. “Legacy Square is the essence of the Black community here in Newport News,” he says emphatically. “It shows who we were and what we accomplished.”
As a response and a means to partly remedy some of the historical inequity, he has trumpeted this project, dubbed Legacy Square, far and wide. It stretches 12 blocks through the Southeast District of Newport News. Buildings of historical and cultural significance dot the landscape, such as the former famed, all-Black Huntington High School, Pearl Bailey Library, and the “Negro hospital,” Whittaker Memorial Hospital, among others. Referred to as the East End, it is situated in the heart of the Black community and very near the James River waterfront and downtown districts.
But the city administration of late has been less than lukewarm to the idea of marking so many streets as ‘historic’, however. Approving the Legacy Square concept would most definitely mean that the City would have to come up with funding for new infrastructure, signs, and other such aesthetic improvements. In addition, planning and development activities would need to expand on a larger scale. Such a new historic corridor would have to be incorporated into the City’s overall growth scheme. The city struggles with land availability and scrutinizes every district, every street, and every land lot to get the best use for planned improvement.
Political, social, and business patterns in early America bolstered and protected the early norms of daily life by establishing laws and institutions whose sole purposes were to keep the status quo in place so as to stabilize local economies. Nowhere is this more evident than on the Virginia Peninsula and Newport News. The Virginia Peninsula, the beginning place for American history and its people, exemplifies the aspirations and accomplishments of both races at the height of Jim Crowism.
In listening to Imam Asadi, it’s not terribly difficult to conclude that a conspiracy could possibly exist to downplay and reduce the profound contributions African American citizens made to the City of Newport News. Newport News Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company began in 1886 and to a greater extent, so did the city. The city was created and developed around this “mother industry” with the understanding to use non-Whites only as laborers.
Imam Asadi also maintains that there does appear to be a mentality to ignore the best parts of African American heritage. “How can you have antebellum plantations without a representation of slaves?” he asks. This has been the case at the old Endview Plantation and Lee Hall Plantation, two lucrative tourist stops. The City purchased both properties some years ago and used them for tourism. For visitors, the sites focus on Civil War events on and around the grounds, not mentioning anything of the slaves there. “It’s still history.” Asadi explains, “It’s just a perfect glorification of Confederate history that conveniently separates their Black compatriots.”
1 Population of Newport News, VA By comparison, nearby adjoining city, Hampton, boasts a population of 137,000 (49% African American), and Norfolk, an urban area dominated by the U.S. Navy, records 245,000 (43% African American). 2014 Census Data (estimate), U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/51/51700.html
Staff Writer; Mu Octavis Taalib
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