Margaret Wilson drove through the Aberdeen Gardens community in Hampton on a recent morning, making her way up and down streets replete with childhood memories.
“That’s the house I grew up on, right there,” Wilson said, slowing down to point to a brick house. “This is the neighborhood. I love my neighborhood, can you tell?”
Wilson was one of Aberdeen Gardens’ first residents nearly nine decades ago. She was born in 1939, shortly after Black families moved into the community built as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sweeping New Deal.
Wilson now gives tours of the neighborhood, showcasing more than 150 original homes and notable pieces of the area’s rich history.
But she and other members of the community are also thinking about its future. Aberdeen Gardens faces growing threats from flooding that sometimes damages residents’ property and cuts off key access points.
A $20 million new flood resilience project is meant to protect the historic neighborhood for generations to come.
It’s facilitated by a federal grant awarded through the Biden administration’s signature climate legislation, which is now the target of an attempted funding freeze by President Donald Trump. Hampton officials say the money for Aberdeen appears to still be on track.
“We’re a very connected and fluid community. We're very, very proud of it,” said Shelton Tucker, president of the Greater Aberdeen Community Coalition. “Our aim today is to preserve it, and that's what this is all about.”
A community built “by Blacks, for Blacks”
The New Deal was a suite of reforms, public work projects and programs to help lift the country out of the Great Depression.
One initiative was to build resettlement communities “to relocate entire farm communities to areas in which it was hoped farming could be carried out more profitably,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Aberdeen Gardens was the first planned community for Black residents, housing workers from local shipyards, fisheries and railroads and giving them land to grow their own food. (Hence, the “gardens” in the name.)
Nearby Hampton University, then the Hampton Institute, played a key role in securing funding for the development. It was the only resettlement community designed by a Black architect and built by Black laborers, starting in 1934.
“It was built by Blacks, for Blacks,” Wilson said.
She said Aberdeen became so attractive – featuring indoor plumbing and hardwood floors – that it was almost turned over to white workers until First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited in 1938 and put a stop to that idea.
“It was impressed upon the Roosevelts: ‘You let Black architects design this, you let Black workers build it, you let Black people move into it, and when we're done, it's going to be proof to everyone that this works,’” said Mike Holtzclaw, communications coordinator for the city of Hampton.
Aberdeen Gardens consisted of 158 houses and quickly became tight-knit, home to people of all social classes.
“What we didn't have, if another neighbor had it and needed it, it was theirs,” said Eyvette Jones, who was born in the neighborhood in 1965 and is now president of the Aberdeen Gardens Historic and Civic Association. “We took care of one another.”
Taking action against flooding
Aberdeen was always vulnerable to flooding because of its position along Newmarket Creek. But residents say the problems worsened in recent years.
“I’ve made U-turns, (saying) just ‘I'm not even going that way,’” Jones said. “It's right where you would step out of the car. The water could be as high as that.”
Wilson said it’s an existential threat.
“It impacts the sale of the homes in this neighborhood, because if they find out there's flooding, they go to another neighborhood where it doesn't flood,” she said.
Climate change is partly to blame, causing sea level rise and more intense rainstorms that quickly overwhelm outdated stormwater infrastructure.
The area also became more vulnerable over time as the land around it changed, with new buildings, streets and parking lots replacing natural surfaces that would help absorb water, said Scott Smith, the city’s coastal resilience engineer.
“When this was built, there wasn't as much concern about it. They tolerated (some) road flooding,” Smith said. “Over the last 90 years there has been a lot more development around, which impacts the community.”
The city in recent years studied flooding in Aberdeen Gardens and drafted a list of 51 projects within the area that could help, including widening century-old pipes to carry more water and adding inlets to get water off the road during storm events.
At the same time, the nonprofit Wetlands Watch was working with the community through a program called the Collaboratory, which brings together students of different disciplines to work on neighborhood-scale resilience projects.
One of the first iterations of the Collaboratory ultimately led to a $112 million project in the Chesterfield Heights neighborhood of Norfolk.
Mary-Carson Stiff, executive director of Wetlands Watch, said the goal in Aberdeen was to build off that success, focusing even more on community engagement from the outset.
Students, including from Hampton University, worked with residents to develop a plan rooted in what they’d like to see happen, which included restoring Aberdeen Creek as a priority.
Stiff said the nonprofit committed to sticking with the neighborhood for the long haul, including finding the money to actually implement the designs.
“A lot of communities, people are coming in, they're looking at designs, they're investing a small amount of time, and if resources aren't available and there isn't continuity of interest and continuity of engagement, the projects don't end up getting implemented,” she said. “And that's a problem.”
Late last year, the Aberdeen Gardens project got what it needed to move forward. The Environmental Protection Agency gave the city of Hampton and Wetlands Watch a $20 million award called a Community Change Grant.
The grant comes through an environmental justice initiative launched by the Inflation Reduction Act. President Trump is now trying to freeze all funding through that law.
Wilson said when she heard that Aberdeen’s grant could be affected, she immediately thought about how some in the community might react to another broken government promise.
“I could hear them say, ‘There it goes again. Every time something is really good, getting ready to happen. We start off doing something good, and something takes it out of the way,’” she said. “My prayer is that it will continue.”
The city said it is set to continue. Smith said they were recently told Aberdeen’s funding won’t be blocked. If it is later on, they’d start pursuing state resources, he said.
“The terms of the grant are that we can't expend any funds until March 1,” he said. “So we're still working forward. Part of it will be with our consultants and contractors, putting language in the contracts that if the funding stops, work will stop. So right now, we're just negotiating the unknown with it.”
The goal is to complete the project over the next three years.
Tucker said residents won’t stop fighting to protect their home.
“Aberdeen is definitely one of the jewels here,” he said. “Really it has historical value that's ancient as far as this country is concerned. And it's worth preserving.”
