thenewjournalandguide.com

By Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter
New Journal and Guide

    On January 1, 1963, South Norfolk County and the City of South Norfolk merged to create the current city of Chesapeake. In celebration of  the city’s 50th anniversary, last week ( February 28),  the New Chesapeake Men for Progress, the Chesapeake NAACP, the Chesapeake Forward  and others, co-sponsored a symposium to highlight the  varied contributions of African American residents dating back to the 1630s.
    The event was held at the Chesapeake Conference Center and drew several hundred people.
    One of the key organizers of the  event was Dr. William E. Ward, a native of Keysville, Virginia, who migrated to  the area to take a job at I.C. Norcom in 1959.

By Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter
New Journal and Guide

    Much has been written about President Lincoln’s political moves and the debate which pushed him to issue  the Emancipation Proclamation during the middle of the Civil War.
    Also many pages of history books describe the lives of Blacks in the nation as slaves, freed men and women, abolitionists and soldiers who sought freedom on their foot, lobbying in the halls of political power or fighting in battle to  destroy the confederacy and end slavery.
    But  there are historians who fear that not enough light is being shone on Reconstruction: the period after the war until the early 1880s.

By Randy Singleton

Community Affairs Correspondent

New Journal and Guide

CHESAPEAKE

      The Bells Mill Historical Society sponsored a program on Saturday (Dec. 1)  examining the story of Black Union Soldiers who marched through Chesapeake, VA en route to liberate between 2, 500 to 3,0000  enslaved African Americans in Northeastern North Carolina in December 1863.  

CHESAPEAKE

      On Monday, Memorial Day, May 28, 2012 from 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon, the United States Colored Troops Descendants are hosting the 12th Annual Founder’s Day Observance in Hampton Roads.