Sixty-plus years ago, the white leaders of Newport News, Virginia, seized the core of a thriving Black community to build a college. The school has been gobbling up the remaining houses ever since.
This project was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the ProPublica. This story was co-published with ProPublica and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Deborah Taylor Mapp, 75, along Elkhorn Avenue near 38th St. in the Lambert's Point neighborhood in Norfolk Friday, Sept.8, 2023 as she talked about a childhood friend who lived in the house behind her in photo. Mapp said when she was a child the house was painted red and she spent many hours sitting on the porch with her friend. Photo by Bill Tiernan // VCIJ at WHRO
Schools, including Old Dominion and the flagship University of Virginia, have expanded by dislodging Black families, sometimes by a city’s threat or use of eminent domain.
By Louis Hansen
Uprooted—an Emmy winning documentary film by VCIJ and ProPublica
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