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Norfolk 17

1950s-Era Play Probes Norfolk's Racial Divide

Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter
New Journal & Guide
      
      In 1958, Norfolk closed several of its all-white public schools to avoid complying with a federal court order to desegregate them.
    White political and civic leaders—local and state—were determined to uphold nearly a century long tradition of reminding Blacks of their second class citizenship, by barring them from sitting next to their children in the classroom and department store lunch counters.
An original theater production of that time in Norfolk’s history is now being written for the Virginia Stage Company’s (VSC) 2009 season. Its debut in February 2009 during Black History Month will coincide with Norfolk’s plans to commemorate the re-opening of the schools on February 2, 1959, and the end of the “Massive Resistance” policy that guided the closing.
    Norfolk City Council has appointed a commission to coordinate the official events associated with the city’s special 50th year observance planned for February 2009. The observance is designed also to remember the pioneering Norfolk 17, the first black students to desegregate Norfolk’s schools.
    Recently the composer of the play, Christopher Hanna, the Artistic Director of Virginia Stage Company (VSC), staged a reading of the first draft of the play before invited members of the community and Norfolk’s commemorative commission.
    Reviews from that reading indicate that the play may be just as controversial as the city’s efforts to avoid complying with the 1954 Brown Decision half a century ago.
    During a recent interview with the New Journal and Guide, Hanna in his VSC office in downtown Norfolk, admitted to this reporter that the script for the play is a “work in progress.” He said he is making revisions to his work, using input  from the critics to submit a revised version later this summer.
He said he got an earful from people after two scheduled readings in early May. 

Posted June 4, 2008

  
   Along with several members of the Norfolk 17 and some African Americans who viewed the play, including the publisher of the New Journal and Guide, the current version of the play does not reflect the African American interpretation of events at that time clearly or accurately enough.
   Hanna, who is originally from New York, said he first heard of Norfolk’s massive resistance saga about a decade ago from locales. VSC commissioned him to write the play as part of their contribution to the city’s observance of the anniversary of the end of massive resistance. He admits his education about that part of Norfolk’s history, as an outsider, is a work in progress as well.
    Books about Norfolk’s history, court records, news clippings, strong and fading personal memories, information from the essays inspired 50 percent of his insight to write his work, “A Line In the Sand”, he said.
“About 50 percent of the play comes from the facts from history and the other half is from my imagination...my interpretation of,” said Hanna.  “I had to do a lot educating of myself about this chapter of the  city’s history 50 years ago. Today we don’t talk about it and when we do, it is in subtle layers. I want us to educate people about that era so we can start having a greater dialogue about it.”
   Of the 18 characters who appear in the play, there are a number who stand above others. They include  Billy Pruier, Norfolk’s powerful Clerk of the Court, who ran Norfolk city politics when the Brown Decision was issued. Norfolk, at the time of Massive Resistance, emerged as Virginia’s largest city, with the most populous school division and economic as a sea port and center of commercial investment.
   The most prominent local figure portrayed is W. Fred Duckworth, Norfolk’s mayor in 1958, whose influence and power in the school controversy evolved and became stronger over time. Duckworth led a council which engineered Norfolk’s great movement forward, Hanna says, and it is revealed in his play.

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