Dorothy West, a 1964 graduate of the Virginia State School for the Deaf, Blind and Multi-Disabled in Hampton, said the city’s demolition and sale of the campus still feels like an injustice.
“After that school was sold, it felt like we were kind of killed, like they killed us,” she said. “Like we weren't worth anything.”
Just 10 acres of pine grove and the school’s gateway remain. Hampton crafted ideas for the site with input from alumni and neighbors. The early plans are generating mixed emotions.
William Ritter founded the school in 1908 as the Virginia State School for Colored Deaf and Blind Children on land donated by Black farmers and landowners. It served generations who were denied enrollment at the older, all-white campus in Staunton during state-mandated segregation.
Students often lived at the school year-round, with some going home for holidays. Alumni and neighbors recall a robust campus life of play, sport, dance and music. It wasn’t easy for every student to be away from home.
But Catherine Northan, who attended from 1960 to 1969, said it gave her a sense of belonging and independence.
“It also gave me the strength to be able to go out and be a part of society and help to change society,” she said. “We became brothers and sisters there.”
Northan credits the teachers for much of her success. She went to college and got her master’s in education and human resource development. Northan is now an author and has worked for 30 years at the Peninsula Center for Independent Living.
West also remembers the school fondly. She lost her hearing after an illness when she was 9 and enrolled when she was 12.
“I had some great teachers and I really developed a lot,” West said.
West studied business in New York and, after graduating, worked at the City College of New York. West eventually returned to Virginia to work at Fort Eustis.
“I would walk over to the school and visit them during that time and I would meet all the new students,” West said. “I really enjoyed that time.”
The legal battles of the modern Civil Rights movement integrated schools in the 1960s. Students began to be placed in Hampton or Staunton based on location rather than race.
Not long later, enrollment began dropping as Virginia started shifting blind and deaf students into public schools in the 1970s. The General Assembly closed the Hampton school in 2008 and moved operations to Staunton.
Former students and organizations such as Insight Enterprises and the Peninsula Center for Independent Living fought the move, raising $1 million to keep the Hampton campus open.
Northan believed the school still had a lot to offer.
“The students within the public schools is great, that’s what we fought for, but how many of them actually get what they need if you’re going into these public schools?” she said. “How many are sitting in corners because you have a teacher who’s trying to teach students without disabilities, students with disabilities and teach to the different learning styles?”
Hampton’s Economic Development Authority bought much of the property in 2010, while private firm Phenix Industrial bought a smaller portion. The campus was demolished. After years of planning and fierce opposition, the city and Phenix in 2022 sold most of the land to a Missouri-based warehouse developer, NorthPoint, leaving 10 acres of pines and the school’s gateway.
West felt that the alumni community was left out when Hampton sold the land and didn’t communicate its plans well.
“It was intended for the education of Black boys and girls and then eventually students of all races,” Northan said. “All of that land, beautiful land, which I feel like still could have been used in some way for that purpose. You have warehouses out there now? Go figure.”
Joan Weaver advocated for the school and the Greater Wythe neighborhood in which it was nestled.
Walking down the overgrown roadway that once led to the heart of the campus is like walking through a memory book for her. Now, the road cuts off before a newly built half-million-square-foot warehouse called the Phenix Commerce Center.
“You can close your eyes, you can smell the pines, you can still hear but when you open them this is what you see: concrete and steel.”
Weaver grew up near the school – her father was a bus driver there – and says the students became like family.
“My father found this as more than a job; it became a part of his life,” Weaver said.
“These were his children and this was his school.”
Weaver is one of several residents who opposed the Phenix center plan. She believes demolishing the campus disregards the surrounding historically Black neighborhood.
Weaver takes solace in succeeding in another mission: seeing the school permanently recognized in the Hampton History Museum. The museum recently unveiled panels about the school with braille translations and is working on an oral history project to collect the stories of surviving alumni.
Hampton began reaching out to alumni and neighbors in 2024 to explore what the remaining 10 acres could be. The city’s community engagement manager, Monica Meharg, wants to foster new faith with residents and former students. She calls the process “co-curating.”
“They're going to be the ones who bring the life to whatever that design is,” Meharg said. “The more engaged they are in that process and bought in they are to that process, the better.”
Ideas included safety and lighting improvements around the old campus to a multi-purpose trail with historic markers, an accessible playground, an outdoor classroom space and a community garden.
Hampton will use the $1.5 million the city got from selling the land to NorthPoint to leverage grants to pay for the projects. The timeline for completion is still to be determined.
“The priority for our staff, for the community, is restoring and reintroducing this seeing and blind and hearing and deaf, of hard of hearing, interaction with each other,” Meharg said.
Meharg acknowledged that there have been many reasons for the community to lose trust in the city government. Still, she hopes that approaching her work with honesty and authenticity can start to mend bridges.
“We want to do this the best way we can, but also recognize that our threshold will not be perfection,” Meharg said. “It’s balancing all those different voices, but we really believe and we know that that’s the best way to go about doing it.”
Several alumni and neighbors applaud Meharg and her team. Northan said nothing can make up for the hurt, but believes the city is on the right track.
“Those of us who attended that school, the legacy of that school is within us,” she said. “We passed that on to our own children and grandchildren and to others who know us.”
For Weaver, the loss is too great to overcome. She struggles to picture the city’s plans fitting in next to an industrial warehouse.
“Why would I bring my child here when there are so many more stimulating environments for them to be in and to see?” Weaver said. “I'd put a statue of Ritter here if I had it my way and then little children around him.”
But West is optimistic and hopes to see Hampton’s plans when finished.
“The important part is that we agree right now so we can move on, keep going with the process and fix the 10 acres and make it look beautiful,” West said. “We can go and visit and sit there and relax and say, ‘Oh, I cherish this time in my school here.’”
