Local News in Virginia

80th Anniversary: Al Sharpton To Address Norfolk State Breakfast

NSU Newsroom

The Rev. Al Sharpton will deliver the keynote address at Norfolk State University’s first-ever prayer breakfast, Friday, Sept. 18, from 7:30–9 a.m., in the NSU Student Center. Tickets to the event sold out in early September.

The interfaith prayer breakfast, Forging Onward through Prayer, Education and Service, is part of the university’s Founders Day activities and its 80th anniversary celebration.

Sharpton, who hosts Politics Nation on MSNBC and the syndicated radio show Keepin it Real, is the founder and president of the National Action Network (NAN), a not-for-profit civil rights organization headquartered in Harlem, New York. NAN has more than 60 chapters nationwide including a Washington, DC Bureau and regional offices across the country.

Norfolk State has a long history of working for social justice. During the mid-1950s, as racial tensions grew in the region, Norfolk State became a major site where people in the community could meet, discuss, and strategize about the oncoming implementation of integration.

In April 1963, the college hosted the regional conference, “Time for Action in the Mid-South.” The conference brought together leaders and others from nine different states and DC to work on problems such as equal employment opportunities, fair housing rights, voting rights and education as these issues related to integration.

In modern times, many of the university’s faculty, staff and students have championed civil rights and social justice issues. Faculty, staff and students of what was then known as the Norfolk Division of Virginia State College, as well as the leaders and members of local black churches, have a history of activism in the local quest for civil rights in the Hampton Roads region.

Dr. William E. Ward, retired NSU history professor and former Chesapeake mayor, organized the first blacks elected to city council in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Student activists such as James Gay marched to Norfolk City council meetings and demanded desegregation of facilities such as hotels and museums.

Members of NSU’s Faith Partners Network, a faith-based coalition comprised of all ministerial denominations created in 2012, will lead prayers for our youth and the less fortunate, world peace and social justice, and for equality and reconciliation.