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Norfolk 17 To Be Honored In July At 1st Baptist, Bute St.

Rosaland Tyler
Assistant Editor
New Journal and Guide

   Those 17 black high school students who were denied entrance to Norfolk’s all-white high schools in 1958 will be honored by the congregation of the historic First Baptist Church, Bute Street on July 6 at 10 a.m.
    They are called the Norfolk 17.
The keynote speaker will be the Honorable John Charles Thomas, a former Virginia Supreme Court Justice. Patricia Turner, one of the 17, now retired from teaching, will offer reflections. Awards will be presented to the 17 honorees, who now live in San Antonio, Maryland, Decatur, Ga., and Hampton Roads, and are traveling back to Norfolk for the occasion.
   “They were the first black students to integrate white schools in Hampton Roads,” said Lula Sears Rogers, who chairs the church’s department of history and archives. “When they sought to go to the white schools, they closed the white schools.”
    As a result, from September 1958 to January 1959, the 17 students were schooled at the historic First Baptist Church. “A church school was developed and they were taught there from September to January,” Rogers said. Some 10,000 white students who were shut out of their closed schools went unschooled for that period or attended private schools or public schools in other areas.
    The First Baptist Church program comes as the city of Norfolk is planning a week-long commemoration in 2009 of that period in its history 50 years ago. Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim has appointed a commission of area citizens to plan and engineer events in late January and early February 2009. Rogers is one of the commission members.

Posted May 7, 2008

    “They can consider our event a kickoff affair,” Rogers said.

  She said the church program was scheduled prior to the announcement of the city’s plans and is being held in 2008 because it was 50 years ago this year that the 17 were schooled at First Baptist.
    Rogers said she was a student at Booker T. Washington High School at the time. The youngest of 15 children who would go on to enroll in the military, to become educators, or to practice law, she said she heard about the Norfolk 17 like many others in the area.
    Rogers went on to earn an undergraduate degree in speech pathology at Hampton University and a master’s at Old Dominion University. Although she recently retired from the Portsmouth school system as a speech pathologist, she is still active.
    She is a trustee at the church and a lifetime member of the church. The Rev. Dr. Robert G. Murray is the senior pastor.
   “I won’t say what the special gifts are because I want it to be a surprise,” said Rogers about the July 6th program.   

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