Local News in Virginia
Heritage Group Embraces All-Black Schools’ History
According to James Hollins, the group’s President, the organization has already secured its non-profit status and is working on establishing a headquarters for a base of operations.
It is also organizing a Hall of Fame to honor not only student athletes, but coaches, band leaders, educators and student members of academic clubs.
The group is soliciting names of nominees now and they hope to screen and select the first class for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in June of next year.
Hollins said the first class of Hall of Fame inductees will number close the 30, which will be the largest.
“We want to recognize a lot of the rich and power history of those historically Black schools which still exist and long gone,” said Hollins, who lives in Charlottesville. “Teams from these historic Black schools own some of the most critical sports records in the state’s history.
“We want to collect and save that history and our heritage for not only the past generations, but the future ones,” Hollins said. “We have a lot of work to educate and secure the support of the community.”
The VIA Heritage Association President said that among the first Hall of Fame inductees will be Norfolk Journal and Guide Sports Reporter Cal Jacox. Starting his career with the Guide in 1948, Jacox became the premier Black sports journalist. Hollins said Jacox covered not only the exploits of Black high school sports teams but the CIAA and Black college sports. Jacox ended his career with the Guide in the early 1970s. He is now deceased.
“Everybody waited each week for Mr. Jacox’s columns especially, his predictions for football and basketball,” said Hollins. “He was Mr. Black Sports and he worked to showcase it every week.
Hollins says a lot of the VIA sports records and other documents associated with the historically Black high schools are now lost.
But a large portion of the old VIAL and VIA records of the athletic and academic accomplishments of the historically Black schools are located at Virginia State University (VSU).
According to Shaw, who is busily compiling important VIA stats, on November 12, 1924, Hampton’s Union High School defeated Norfolk’s Booker T. Washington 7-0 to win the first VIAL (Virginia Interscholastic Athletic League) football championship.
Hollins, a graduate of Burley High School, said the VIA Heritage Association has been lobbying officials at VSU to put the organization’s headquarters and base of operations at the HBCU.
Tennis star Arthur Ashe, basketball’s Bobby Dandridge, and noted football stars will join acclaimed band performers, cheerleaders and academic standouts in being honored.
Hollins said over the years Black high school alumni have been persistent about integrating the history of the formerly segregated Black high schools into the desegregated VHSL history books.
He said the story of achievement by I.C. Norcom and Burley High School was included in the VHSL history books, due in part to the alumni and historic varsity members of those two respective schools.
A list of the Historically Black high schools and officials can be found on the VIA Heritage website, http://viaheritage.com/
