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Norfolk Highlights 1584 - 1881
By George Holbert Tucker
Chapter 59
African-Americans in Norfolk
Although it has not always been acknowledged, African-Americans have
played an important role in the development of Norfolk since its establishment.
The strength and endurance of African-American men provided the main
source of manpower to load and unload the vessels that brought prosperity
to the area, while other members of the race faithfully served the private
families and public and religious establishments of the growing town,
borough, and city as clergymen, teachers, cooks, butlers, waiters, housemaids,
nurses, washerwomen, and coachmen.
Black men also distinguished themselves in time of war. For instance,
James Thomas served with distinction as a boatswain during the Revolutionary
War in the Virginia Navy and was described as a "fellow of daring
and, though a man of color, was respected by all the officers who served
with him."
Norfolk also had the distinction of having the most publicized school
for black children prior to the Civil War. It was established by Mrs.
Margaret Douglass, a white woman from South Carolina, who opened classes
in Norfolk in 1853 for free black children. Arrested on the charge that
slaves were among her pupils, Mrs. Douglass denied her guilt, but was
found guilty and sentenced to one month in the Norfolk City Jail, an
episode that received national publicity in a book published in 1854.
Norfolk's first free public schools for blacks were opened in 1863
in schools formerly used by white children by order of the Federal occupation
forces. In 1865, the Norfolk schools were returned to the use of white
children, and black children in the city were without schools until
1867, when the American Missionary Society opened several black schools
in the city. This arrangement continued until 1871, when the City Council
established a free black school in each of the four city wards and combined
all of the schools, white and black, under one superintendent.
Higher education for African-Ameicans came to Norfolk in 1883, when
the Norfolk Mission College, which continued until 1916, was established
by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.
Norfolk's first African-American newspaper was published by Joseph
T. Wilson, a runaway Norfolk slave, who returned from South America
to the United States to enlist in the Union Army at the outbreak of
the Civil War. Wilson became the editor of the True Southerner in Norfolk
in 1866, which he continued to publish until a white Norfolk mob smashed
his presses, after which he continued his newspaper career in Petersburg.
In the realm of religion, Norfolk's black Baptists have the oldest
history. Norfolk's first Baptist congregation, organized in 1800, was
interracial and worshipped in the then abandoned Norfolk Borough Church,
now St. Paul's Episcopal Church. In 1815, the white members withdrew
and founded Cumberland Street Baptist Church, the mother church of all
white Baptist congregations in Norolk. African-American members, served
by a white minister, the Reverend James Mitchell, an Englishman, continued
as an independent congregation and became the progenitor of First Baptist
Church, Bute Street, and Bank Street Church of today.
Grace Episcopal Church, originally called The Church of the Holy Innocents,
was founded in 1883 by Negros who had been communicants of Old Christ
Church. Norfolk's black Catholics also worshipped with white Catholics
until 1889, when St. Joseph's Parish was established for them. Since
1861, they have worshipped in Old St. Mary's Catholic Church.
Norfolk's oldest black Methodist church, St. John African Methodist
Episcopal Church, was an outgrowth of a mission for slaves established
by Cumberland Street Methodist Church in 1840. The present congregation
still occupies the site on Bute Street for its original church in 1848.
The United Order of Tents, J.R.G. and J.U., one of the most important
black women's lodges in the country, was also founded in Norfolk by
two slave women, Annetta M. Lane of Norfolk and Harriet R. Taylor of
Hampton, with the aid of two abolitionists, Joshua R. Giddings and Joliffe
Union, whose initials are incorporated into the lodge title. Set up
originally as an underground railway for slaves, the lodge threw off
its secrecy after the Civil War and was officially organized in Norfolk
in 1867.
 Chapter
60
Norfolk and the Revolutionary Centennial
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