Despite being STRONGLY encouraged to find a home elsewhere, Speaker Don Scott finds a community that embraces all of him.
Despite being STRONGLY encouraged to find a home elsewhere, Speaker Don Scott finds a community that embraces all of him.
Speaker Scott: My name is Don Scott. I live in Portsmouth, Virginia. The area they call Churchland. It has a lot of churches over there. Tens of twenties of thirties churches. Once I come over the High Street Bridge, going into Churchland.
There are one, two, three, four, five churches like within a half a mile of one another. Then once I turn on Cedar Lane going to my house, there's St. Christopher's Episcopal United..., three, four, five, another five churches on Cedar Lane easily. And then on my street that I turn onto is Resurrection Catholic Church. So I'm very well protected by the Lord.
(Bluesy Church music underscores the following)
I am not originally from Portsmouth. I am originally from Houston, Texas. My mother was living in 3rd Ward in Houston, Texas at the time that I was born. My father left shortly thereafter.
Long story, but I'm going to give you the short version. So after I finished Texas A& M, I went to the Navy, I was a Naval officer, service warfare officer. I'd come through here once or twice, but not full time station, TDO, temporary duty stuff. And, went to LSU Law School, then after law school, went to prison.
Nichole Hill: Don was arrested for drug possession while studying for the bar. He served his time, and was released. But that’s not what this story is about.
Don’s father passed away while he was in prison, and his mom didn’t have the resources to help him so his Uncle took him in.
(Music ends)
Speaker Scott: So, when I got out, he said, come here, I'm going to put you on. First, I lived in his basement. Then he helped me get my first job. You know, I got a degree, I got a law degree. I'm thinking I'm gonna get this great job to hook up in some corporate place with a tie and suit every day.
That joker got me a job welding. The lesson he gave me when I first came home was, How bad do you want it? I'm gonna give you a job welding, you're gonna be 30 feet up in the air, and do you want it? You gonna whine or you just gonna go do the job, huh? Here's a hard hat, here's some boots.
Nichole Hill: And so Don Scott went to work. In Delaware. In the Winter. Eventually, he shifted into a job in Workforce Development. Starting as a case manager and moving up to Senior VP. He was good at his job and was sought after. Then he was offered a job in Norfolk, and he took it. He’d also met someone, fallen in love and proposed. Once he got the job in Norfolk - he and his future wife started their house hunt.
Speaker Scott: We had a real estate agent. bless her heart. She told me when I came here, she met my wife and I. We were trying to buy a house right before we got married.
She was like, look, y'all seem like a nice Black couple. Of course she was a little white lady, she was a nice lady. I'm not showing y'all anything in Portsmouth. I think that's illegal, I know it is now, but it was funny that she did it. I'll show y'all Chesapeake, I'll show y'all Norfolk, I'll show you Virginia Beach, I'll show Suffolk.
She had us way out in the middle of nowhere in Suffolk, way out 58, but she would not show us anything in Portsmouth. The only way I ended up in Portsmouth is I had a fraternity brother. who I had met briefly here. And when my wife came in on the weekend, he said, let me take y'all to dinner.
It was a Friday night. We go to dinner, and he lived in Portsmouth. And he drove us around Portsmouth, and he took us down a street where some friends of his lived, and we were looking at the street, and we saw a house for sale.
And we jumped out and, you know, it was like 10 o'clock at night. So we grabbed a little flyer out. And we was like, huh, this house looks exactly like some of the houses we've looked at in other places, except for it's $200,000 cheaper, and it's the same builder in the whole nine.
So we called our real estate agent that morning, said we wanted to see this house. Do you know that lady refused to show us that house? So we ended up getting the real estate agent who had listed the house. And she showed us the house. And we let that lady go. And that lady who listed it got the commission for being the buyer and seller.
And so that was on a Saturday. We looked at the house. Turns out the house was owned by the outgoing superintendent of Portsmouth's Public Schools. Dr. Hawkins was his name.
Nichole Hill: Both parties shared relatives in Scotland Neck, North Carolina–a VERY small town, so this was a pretty big coincidence. That connection sealed the deal.
(light snare drums begin)
Speaker Scott: So we put in a contract that day. And he took our contract. Cause of the Scotland neck hookup. And so, we've been there ever since, and that's how we got to Portsmouth. We should be in anywhere else but Portsmouth if we had listened to the real estate agent.
(drums end)
Nichole Hill: The real estate agent would rather lose a sale then show someone a house in Portsmouth…
Speaker Scott: So, my block is off the hook. I mean, it is like, It's utopia if you believe in American Dream. It is what, when people run commercials on TV about what America should look like, It's an integrated street. White, black. Up and down the street, mixed. You can't tell from the outside who lives there.
Because every house is taken care of, the yards are taken care of. But my street is 60 percent black, 40 percent white. My next door neighbor was a circuit court judge. The neighbor a couple of doors down was the chief, dental officer for the Department of Corrections statewide, and had been a retired Colonel in the Army. Another neighbor, a couple of blocks over, he was the head of the shipyard's engineering department. Professionals, engineers, shipyard, blue collar mixed in, I call them blue collar professionals.
They didn't get a professional degree, they don't have a diploma, but they were tradespeople, dominion energy they worked for, graduated with a high school diploma, making great money, and had worked themselves up through the food chain in, in an environment where they were not supposed to have been successful.
So it's a great, it's a great street. Very caring, look out for one another very responsible. And so it's just a cool street, cool street, a good place to raise your kids and let your kids see what's possible, black or white.
Nichole Hill: After settling in, Don and his wife just kept falling for all Portsmouth had to offer.
(Dreamy music plays)
Speaker Scott: We were, we were young.
Well, we weren't young. We were adventurous. And so we like to do different things, especially like on the weekend. Cause she was starting her practice. Here she bought a dental practice in Norfolk, which she still has 18 years later now. But we did a lot of stuff that, don't tell my Black friends, but we would go kayaking.
(Sounds of water as an oar passes through, and bird calls underscore the following)
We would go out to Hoffler's Creek every weekend, get a kayak down, take it out on the, on the water. Beautiful. Portsmouth has so many beautiful walkways right here from where we're sitting. There's a, there's like a little mini boardwalk here that you can walk down and get exercise.
It's beautiful. Best views in this whole region. So I always say Portsmouth is a blue collar town with white collar views. And people don't even know what they have. We see it and we take it for granted so often. My family that comes here from Texas sometimes, they cannot believe how many people live on the water here.
They cannot believe how many views we have. They, just going across a bridge, like my mother came here, she's 89, she's just looking out the window, looking at the water, like, it's so peaceful. We just zooming around, don't even appreciate it. And so I try to stop a lot and appreciate the water.
But we up against a narrative that people have created about the city that is difficult to deal with because they'd have you think that we crime ridden, I mean, do we have some crime? Do we have some challenges? Yes. Do we have an a disproportionate amount of poverty? Yes. You put those two things together, you know, poverty and disenfranchisement and trauma then you're going to have some, some behaviors that, that are not great.
But we have to continue to work on it. And folks in Portsmouth that live here, they know how to avoid stuff. The people from Portsmouth that want to stay out the way, we stay out the way. There are some people who know how to get in the way, and they get in the way.
I hear it on the news every day. You can hear the bias against Portsmouth every single day. And so that's why I'm so proud that we got a couple of leaders here in Portsmouth that can kind of balance it out.
You want to meet with me? You got to come to Portsmouth. You want to have dinner, lunch, you got to be in Portsmouth.
(Music ends)
Nichole Hill: This affection for his city comes from a feeling of having been fully embraced and strengthened by his community.
Speaker Scott: And so that also gave me the confidence to be out. Like, you know. tell my story. Yeah, I've been to prison. I came back just to tell my full story. And he gave me that confidence because I knew that this town is a town that's very resilient. I think folks here identify with me as someone who doesn't quit.
You get knocked down, you don't whine, you get your ass back up and you go to work. And that's what I did.
So yeah, and Portsmouth just wrapped me up, and embraced me, and elevated me. Yeah, I got a lot of love for Portsmouth. And, I think they love me too.
What do I do now? I represent House District 88 in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Nichole Hill:: And…
Speaker Scott: I'm the Speaker of the House in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Portsmouth feels like home. It feels like a comfortable set of clothes that you can wear every day. Like I'm very comfortable, in Portsmouth I can go anywhere around here and I'm not uncomfortable, I don't care where it is, it could be in the housing projects, it could be in the top banker's office, I fit in in all of those places and I fit in, like I'm not, I don't have to fake it, all of those places I fit in, wherever you put me, you put me in the corporate boardroom or you put me in the hood, I fit and I don't have to change my dialect, I don't have to change how I speak.
Cause I'm just gonna be me.
(Bluesy music fades back in)
Nichole Hill: Visit our website Truthbetoldcommunity.com to find out ways to get involved, and share this episode with friends.
This series was written by Jackie Glass and Hannah Sobol, edited and hosted by me, Nichole Hill, Sound Design by Trendel Lightburn, and our work has been supported by the Virginia African American Cultural Center through a grant from Virginia Tourism Corporation. Follow our work by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. We couldn’t do this without people brave enough to share their experiences, so thank you Speaker Don Scott.