Kobe Nguyen, Jacob Hill, Javier Miranda-Castro and Kaleem Haq from Maury High School, decided they wanted to dive into the history and culture of Norfolk, Virginia. They took an in depth look into the past of the civil rights era and how that has shaped today’s culture.

They decided to go to the Slover Library to do some intensive research to find a good focal point of their presentation and team member Kaleem, brought up the idea of the Norfolk 17.

When they began doing a little “white page searching” they found Dr. Patricia Turner – member of the Norfolk 17, who was still in the area and willing to sit down for an interview. She shared her journey, struggles, and triumphs during that time of desegregation in schools.

“It’s thanks to people like her that today we have the privilege to go to school with all kinds of people with all kinds of backgrounds,” said Haq.

While interviewing Dr. Turner it was evident that one person’s journey can shape diversity and culture for an entire generation. Even though the group of students concluded that we still have a long way to go with injustice and equal rights they were able to see tremendous strides of improvement from fifty years ago.

They were given $5,000 for their school and each received an iPad mini for their award winning presentation in, “Shaping Diversity.”

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