A TURNING POINT IN HISTORY ; EVENT REMEMBERS THE "NORFOLK 17" Series: BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 1954-2004

Nicole Morgan The Virginian-Pilot
883 words
17 May 2004
The Virginian-Pilot & The Ledger-Star
FINAL
B1
English
Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.

NORFOLK

Geraldine Talley Hobby was one of 17 students who integrated Norfolk public schools. Today, her daughter is a pediatrician. Her two granddaughters go to school with white children. One even spent the night at the house of a white friend recently.

Hobby's 13-year-old granddaughter, Carmen Curry of Virginia Beach, said she knows that if it weren't for her grandmother, she wouldn't be able to go to school with whites. But she said she thought she still might be able to have a sleepover at a white friend's house even if blacks didn't fight for integration.

Fifty years after Brown v . Board of Education, Hobby has one request: that young people, like her granddaughters, understand and appreciate what she did.

"The generation gap needs to come together more," Hobby said. "Sometimes they take things for granted."

Hobby, along with a Norfolk State University associate professor, a city historian and five others from the "Norfolk 17," explained exactly how the events surrounding Brown v . Board of Education unfolded and how they affected the city during a discussion commemorating the 50th anniversary of the decision Sunday at the Chrysler Museum of Art.

The presenters gave an audience of about 100 a timeline of court decisions and an account of local racial battles. Many of the presenters said that people today, especially children, need to understand the significance of those battles.

"Today is important because so many youngsters don't have the faintest idea of the significance of Brown," said W.T. Mason Jr. , a lawyer who was active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the time of the 1954 Supreme Court decision. "They have no idea of the sacrifice of the Norfolk 17."

That sacrifice has a long history, said Cassandra Newby- Alexander , an associate history professor at Norfolk State University and a presenter at the event.

It started with the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which said everyone was entitled to equal accommodation in public places. That was replaced by Jim Crow laws that encouraged segregation. And the courts legitimized the "separate but equal" doctrine in 1896 with Plessy v . Ferguson, which said it was legal to separate whites and blacks as long as the facilities were equal.

In 1909, the NAACP was formed to start a legal fight to end segregation.

That fight culminated in the 1954 Brown v . Board of Education ruling.

On Dec. 9, 1952, the case was argued before the Supreme Court for three days. The NAACP said that segregation hurt the minds of children, it damaged America's claim to be the leader of the free world, and it was too expensive for the South to maintain, Newby- Alexander said.

By May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren read the unanimous decision that segregated schools were unconstitutional.

Desegregation in Virginia would be a battle fought for another five years, said city historian Peggy Haile-McPhillips .

She noted that newly elected governor Thomas Stanley said, "I shall use every legal means at my command to continue segregated schools in Virginia."

Schools shut down rather than allow black students inside.

By 1959 and after another court battle, Norfolk allowed 17 students to enter six of its schools. Several of those students told their own horror stories on Sunday: how they were spit on, beaten, called names and threatened.

LaVera Forbes , of Norview Junior High School, said someone stabbed her in the back, and she had to go to the emergency room. When she walked home from school, black families closed their front doors. Her old friends were forbidden to play with her.

That time was so painful, she blocked out much of it . It has come back to her only in pieces.

"We all have to love each other in this world," she said, "because hate isn't going to get us anywhere."

Andrew Heidelberg said someone threw a baseball at his head and missed. Every day, he went to school afraid that he would be another Emmett Till , a black Chicago boy maimed and killed by angry whites in Mississippi.

"I wonder how our world could be so cruel to kids," he said. "All I wanted to do was go to school."

Another said she couldn't take physical education because whites said she would dirty the showers.

Hobby said she is going to write a book about the pain they all suffered.

"We went through a lot," Hobby said.

"I just thank God that I survived."

* Reach Nicole Morgan at 446-2443 or nicole.morgan pilotonline.com.

Caption: Color photo MORT FRYMAN/THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Two of the Norfolk 17, Pat Turner and Andrew Heidelberg, spoke at the Chrysler Museum of Art on Sunday. Photos MORT FRYMAN/THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Above: Presenter Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander gave a historical timeline leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education case. At left: Five of the "Norfolk 17," the first black students to attend formerly all-white Norfolk schools in 1959, listen to the presentation at the museum. Left to right: Deloris Johnson, Olivia Driver-Lindsay, Andrew Heidelberg, Geraldine Talley Hobby and Pat Turner.

Document NFLK000020040518e05h0002v