Imagine a high school education so transformative that it fuels a lifelong mission for change. Joni Ivey reflects on the final days of her historic Black high school, the fight for integration, and how she helped create a new legacy for education in Southern Newport News.
Imagine a high school education so transformative that it fuels a lifelong mission for change. Joni Ivey reflects on the final days of her historic Black high school, the fight for integration, and how she helped create a new legacy for education in Southern Newport News.
https://www.dailypress.com/2017/02/06/resistance-and-repercussions-newport-news-residents-look-back-at-schools-desegregation/
https://heritage.nn.k12.va.us/
(Slow music with a subtle beat plays under the following)
Nichole Hill: The voice you are about to hear is Joni Ivey, a mentor, a tutor, a person who could hand you a meal, or a blueprint for change.
She's like the Godmother of Newport News...
Ms. Joni Ivey: I wouldn't say that, but I've been active since I was a teenager in community engagement. I was in D. C. for 25 years. And when I retired, I came back home to Newport News. And I chose to, locate myself in the Southeast community of Newport News, which is a historical African American community.
(Music ends)
I grew up here. My Grandmother's home place is about five blocks from here. Living in the Southeast, there are some challenges. I mean, you, you, you hear gunshots and, but I think, on the whole, people who live here decide to live here.
I know my neighbors. is called Christopher Shores. So I know practically everybody in this community. I used to know everybody.
Nichole Hill: And she means EVERYBODY.
Ms. Joni Ivey: I knew Mrs. Downing-Gross. She was an amazing shero, and every time I go by that building, I think of the work that she did with the Office of Economic Opportunity. But I was fortunate enough to be a debutante.
For one of Mrs. Downing Gross's social groups.
(Debutante ball music quietly underscores the following)
And my mother wanted me to be a debutante, and I really did not want to be a debutante. The first meeting we went, and it was several doctor's daughters and people that I didn't know.
So we were taught all of the social graces and then we had to learn how to do a dance. But I just didn't want to be in it, but I did it. I toughed it out for my mother. That was my senior year in high school in 1971. I survived though. (laughs) I survived.
(Music ends)
I went to George Washington Carver High School. It was an African American school and we found out probably two days before graduation, in fact, while we were rehearsing, our principal came in and told us that the school would cease to be a high school in September, and we would be the last graduating class.
And we were, we were heartbroken because when you close your school, when you want to have reunions, there's no school. And so our class was the last graduating class.
Nichole Hill: That was in 1971, brought on by a lawsuit the year before by the NAACP against Newport News for operating a dual school system.
Ms. Joni Ivey: But life was so special going to Carver because you knew your friends, you knew your school friends because basically you were with them from elementary school to high school and so you establish a bond that you can't break. And I often tell my friends that they are a part of whatever success I've made in my career because I practice on them.
One of my friends ran for student council president. First of all, it was one of my classmates who was really, really smart.
He passed several years ago Wilbert Ash. I always liked to be a behind the scenes organizer and, my friends will, will tell me that, I'm always the boss telling people what to do, but we just, we just organized and, talked to other people in the school and I had a big family so I had--my sister was in a lower grade so she was talking to her classmates and his brother was in the same class that my sister so they were organizing and we just--I don't I can't even remember who we beat, but it certainly made me comfortable about elective anything. So I always credit him with giving me the opportunity to experience elective politics. I practiced on him and we won and he was very conscientious about things for students.
And he was the author of having a pep rally without administrators and he could persuade Mr. Hines to do anything. In fact, we could persuade Mr. Hines. But Mr. Hines was before his time. He was innovative and creative.
Mr. Hines taught leadership, and he did, and Ms. Crittenden they taught leadership,
Nichole Hill: And they taught it by example. Mr. Hines was the first principal of Carver High School, and Ms. Crittenden was the counselor. The school’s motto “Forward Ever, Backward Never” lead many students to become history makers and chain breakers.
Ms. Joni Ivey: In fact she was very instrumental in my brother's career. My brother, who is three years older than me, went to Carver till the 8th grade. And, she decided--she saw that he had potential because if he stayed here, he probably would be mischievous. But so she, helped him get into Yale to a summer program.
And my parents, who had seven children, mind you, said, "We can't afford it." And he went to Ms. Crittenden, and she came back and talked to my parents and said, "He has to go. We don't have a choice. We have to go."
And so he sort of set the bar for every other child in my mother and daddy's family. We, my mother and dad had seven kids and my father died at 57. So my mother was a young widow. She managed to send all of her kids to college and give us off to a good start.
But that was the kind of thing Ms. Crittenden, Margaret and Elmore Davis, and Mr. Hines, they were, providing opportunities prior to desegregation. It's so many gifted students who went to Ivy League schools in the 60s and who excelled. Even though things were different. Like, when I was at Carver and got my book, it was all marked up, scratched up, marked up.
In fact, we had to get brown bags and do a book cover, because the cover was so bad. But we didn't even realize that we were getting hand-me-down books. But we knew they were all marked up, all written over. And that's the kind of books we got, and that's the kind of desks we got. But it did not stop our learning.
What occurred with desegregation, we lost two African American high schools, Huntington and Carver. And I asked my mama, why did y'all fight to keep one of those schools? Because every other city, Richmond kept Armstrong and they kept Maggie Walker.
Norfolk kept Booker T. Portsmouth kept I. C. Norcom.
And we didn't fight and our parents thought that with desegregation it would be so much that--but as I got older, that did something to the community because when you have a school in your neighborhood, then that's when you--kids meet kids at the football game.
You know, I could go to a football game in high school. The stadium, Huntington was right in the community and Friday night, that's where everybody met at the football game.
(Sounds of a crowd cheering, and whistle blowing)
So when we closed Carmen Huntington, there was no football and we had to go up to Todd Stadium, which many of the parents didn't have transportation.
So that meant their children didn't get to experience going to high school football games, which in the African American culture, that was one of the things to do on Friday and Saturday night. 'Cause everybody played football and people followed it. And it's just so many things like that were lost.
Elementary school, my brownie teacher was my second-grade teacher. My Girl Scout teacher was my fourth-grade teacher. Both my first-grade teacher and my second-grade teacher are still living. That is very unreal. Barbara Crump was my first-grade teacher and Barbara Williams was my second-grade teacher.
But it was nothing for your teacher to show up at your house. Which we lost, our teachers, you know. And it was nothing to see your teacher in the store. See your teacher at the movie theater.
So, you know, they were moving in the community and we didn't see that after desegregation. I think visits to the homes probably ceased, but I think that was important. You know, to be able to see your teacher, look up and see your teacher, knocking on your door.
Or for instance, I belonged to the sociology club, and my twelfth-grade teacher took us to New York.
(Sounds of a cab honking, and New York City street)
We saw a play, he, he thought it was everybody's first, it wasn't, because my aunts lived in New Jersey, New York, we went there mostly every summer. But for the majority of the class, it was their first time out of the city, and a trip to New York to see a play. You know, and to see certain things that we wouldn't have seen, those are the kinds of things that, you know, can you imagine? And it was only, it was another teacher, and Teddy Hick's wife, and Mr. Hicks, and the Holcombes. I don't know what possessed them to take a group of eleventh and twelfth graders to New York. And we did behave. We did. Wink wink. We did.
We fought very hard to get Heritage High School. And, many people don't know how that was done, but it was basically a group of people meeting in the basement of Flora Crittenden's home, who worked together to put, to get Heritage High School. It was spearheaded by Chuck Allen, who was on Council at the time, and who worked for planning and somehow was laid off his job and then when he was laid off, some people convinced him to run for council and he did.
But anyway, we had weekly meetings. That, that parcel of land was the only remaining parcel that was large enough for a high school. And we were going up against a developer who wanted to put housing, which was a good thing, but we needed a high school in the community. And Chuck, through his negotiating, and Larry Dillard, who was very passionate about Heritage, and Ms. Crittenden, who let us meet at her house, we just kept pushing it.
And most people don't know it, but Heritage and Woodside--It's the same school. We use the same plans, they're laid out exactly. So what that meant, it was no, this community gets this and that community gets that. The schools are the same, they're the exact same. And they were built together and it was hatched out of Flora Crittenden's basement at 5012 Madison Avenue.
That's some of the little projects that, that came about, that I was happy to be a part of.
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, Ms. Joni Ivey.