This story was reported and written by our media partner the Virginia Mercury.
A Newport News task force, one of two recently established groups in Virginia investigating the historic displacement of Black communities by the state’s public universities, is facing allegations that it has not been open about its operations.
The six-member local government and university joint initiative, along with a separate nineteen-member statewide panel, is seeking potential redress for Black residents that were uprooted to make way for university expansion.
At the state commission’s first meeting in August, Joni Ivey, a member of both bodies, appeared to address public criticism calling for “greater transparency” of the local working group.
“It seems as if we’re quiet, but we’re working deeply to get knowledgeable about the information,” Ivey said.
The Newport News task force, which began working in April, is reviewing decisions made by city and university officials that led to the destruction of a Black middle-class community. These decisions were the focus of an investigative series by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO and ProPublica, which examined the widespread displacement of Black residents by American colleges and universities. In the 1960s, an all-white Newport News council seized 60 acres to halt the Black community’s growth and build what is now Christopher Newport University (CNU). The university’s expansion overtime led to the acquisition of remaining homes. Today, only five remain.
Nearly all of the local task force members appointed by Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones and CNU President Bill Kelly are current city council and university officials. The lone citizen representative is Ivey, community leader and retired Chief of Staff for U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va. Task force meetings are also closed to the public.
Ivey’s remarks follow a Daily Press editorial letter from a Newport News interfaith group, Pastoring the City, which also criticized the task force for lacking ”direct representation” of the impacted community.
“We were unhappy that no resident of Johnson Terrace or other representative of the Shoe Lane neighborhood were named to the task force,” their editorial stated. Pastoring the City demanded a timeline reflecting task force activities, Shoe Lane neighborhood appointments, and “assurances that CNU’s 2030 expansion will not include any more neighborhood homes.”
RELATED: Virginia Establishes Commission to Study Black Communities Uprooted by Public Universities
The Virginia Mercury sent Jones, Kelly and the task force a list of detailed questions about its appointments and operations. Neither answered questions directly, but responded with a Sept. 17 statement from CNU chief spokesperson Jim Hanchett indicating the local group is currently focused on “documenting all properties that once existed” on CNU’s main campus and “as we are able, meeting with the families currently living in that area of land and families who formerly lived in that area of land.”
“We continue our work, and will report on our progress as it is made,” the statement read.
Vice Mayor Curtis Bethany and CNU Provost Quentin Kidd told the Virginia Mercury in a separate statement on August 20th that the task force is in the process of scheduling interviews with impacted families.
“The families will inform the ultimate recommendations and final report this task force produces,” Bethany and Kidd wrote.
Like the interfaith group, Minerva Douglas, who owns one of the remaining homes in the neighborhood displaced by CNU, questions their exclusion.
“Why didn’t they include at least one person from (our) group to be on the task force?” Douglas asked. “It looks like they just overlooked us.”
The latest call for transparency highlights the lack of clarity on the broader Newport News community’s role in task force proceedings. Multiple statements have indicated that the city would “collaborate closely” with the community as well as CNU students, faculty, staff, alumni and administration. However, what remains unclear is whether community collaboration includes plans to consult with the city’s larger population while investigating the matter. Letters provided to the Virginia Mercury also suggest that at least two requests to Jones and Kelly for community or citizen appointments to the task force have gone unanswered.
Audrey Perry Williams, a Newport News historian who participated in a November 2023 CNU-sponsored panel discussion about the displaced community, provided a letter dated February 5th, that she said she sent to Jones and Kelly after the task force’s announcement, advocating for resident appointments.
“I do hope the task force will invite the members of the affected community that are still living in the area,” wrote Williams, “and those that are no longer living there.”
Williams told the Virginia Mercury she hasn’t received a direct response from Jones or Kelly, though she says the Mayor’s office sent a receipt acknowledging her letter.
RELATED: Erasing the “Black Spot”: How a Virginia College Expanded by Uprooting a Black Neighborhood
In April, a week after Jones and Kelly named final members to the task force, concerns about the absence of a public process for membership were raised at a social justice conference on CNU’s campus. Pastoring the City hosted that discussion. According to their editorial, they sent letters afterwards to Jones and Kelly requesting a “public call for citizen participation” and a task force appointment from their organization. Andrew Millard, who penned the editorial on behalf of the group, told the Virginia Mercury those requests also went unanswered.
“We want to make sure this task force doesn’t ignore the residents, because they’re the ones who’ve been most impacted by this,” Millard said in an interview.
Neither the cIty of Newport News nor Christopher Newport University would confirm if Jones or Kelly responded to letters from Williams or Pastoring the City. Additionally, they did not clarify if the two would consider adding new task force members. Questions about whether public participation or review of task force proceedings would be offered were similarly not addressed.
In a joint statement, the city and university reiterated the task force’s focus on researching the ”removal of the Shoe Lane community” and the expansion of CNU’s campus.
“Task Force members are hard at work fulfilling this charge,” their Sept. 17 statement read. Hanchett further clarified with the statement provided that “neither the City or the University are involved in its day-to-day activities.”
Prior statements from the task force have noted that the research of the group is the first of a three-phase plan that includes developing recommendations and implementing them. Amidst recent frustrations, the task force sent an update to reporters on Aug. 15 and posted an update on Aug. 19 stating the group was constructing a research timeline. The group or its co-chairs did not answer questions about when or if they would make a research timeline publicly available.
However, Bethany and Kidd’s update indicated that the task force has not yet completed its first phase, which they described as the “longest and most robust” and would include interviews with families as well as historians, policy makers and experts. The task force leaders also stated that the research would inform recommendations and they would seek feedback from families to refine them.
The task force has not addressed questions seeking information on the number of family interviews the group has confirmed. The Virginia Mercury reached out to the five remaining households. Two households reported speaking to a member of the task force informally. Three said they have not received any correspondence.
A member of one of those families, Dwayne Johnson, said he and his relatives have not heard from the task force. Johnson suggested that the city and university offer more oversight and open task force meetings to the families as a gesture of good faith.
“There’s a lot of mistrust there because of how they’ve handled things in the past,” Johnson added. “Are we going to be trusting of them? They have to really show us something to even earn a little bit of it,”
Gail Guynn, a remaining homeowner, also told the Virginia Mercury that the community as a whole hasn’t received official communication informing them of the task force’s plans and she’d like to see more details on its “members, its mission, action steps, how our input would be incorporated.”
While the Newport News group is working independently of the state commission, at some point their work may overlap, as the statewide group plans to consult with Virginia universities for its own research. The Virginia commission will assess what forms of compensation, if any, might be appropriate for impacted families or their descendants.
At the state commission’s August meeting its chair, Del. Delores McQuinn, D-Richmond, said she expects all universities to cooperate with requests for information. McQuinn also underscored the commission’s commitment to repair harm caused to Virginia’s Black families.
“Across this nation this has happened,” said McQuinn. “I’m hoping that as Virginians and (the) General Assembly, that we could say we’re ready to take on the challenges. We’re ready to stand in the face of this and address it.”
