5 Questions with HCN Art Department: Kathy Wilson

This Month’s 5 Questions is a composite of historians, artists, and commentators.

Compiled by Dwight Easter

DAY 1: CONSIDERING THE HISTORY OF “THE NORFOLK SOUND” - Church Street

By Kathy Wilson

In June of this year, the nation’s attention turned to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not just because (at a time when most folks are avoiding large gatherings) a Trump rally was held there, but because of increased interest in the Tulsa Race Massacre. The horrible events of May 31 - June 1, 1921, are worthy of study and discussion in their own right, but it also should spur us in a long-overdue exploration of “Black Enclaves” like Tulsa’s Greenwood District. We need to do this to bring forth the important role they played in creating “the whole” of the communities in which they existed.

When we think of these communities, we usually think of Harlem in New York City, but Virginia is home to quite a few of these places where common experience gave way to culture. There are the Jackson Ward in Richmond, Seatack in Virginia Beach, and (of course) Church Street in Norfolk. Those of us who preserve our culture and connections through Hardcore Norfolk frequently pay homage to “The Norfolk Sound”. There is no denying that Church Street was one of the governing seats of that sound.

Earlier this week I drove southwest down Church Street from its beginning at St. Mary’s Cemetery to its end at Fenchurch. I passed new townhouses, community gardens, and busy strip malls, I was headed to what used to be the heart of Church Street. Much of what I was looking for is gone, but from the 1910s through the 1950s what I would have found was the thriving cultural heart of Norfolk’s black community.

Once one crosses Princess Anne Road they are on hallowed ground. What is called McCollough Paradise today was, in the first part of the 20th Century, where Church Street’s artistic community thrived. Black residents were entertained by the likes of The Inkspots, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine at The Greenleaf Ballroom. It was above a Woolworth Drugstore near Olney Road, I guess you could say it was kind of their Connection Hall. Then of course once acts got big BIG they played the “Jewel in the Crown”, The Booker T. Washington Theater (soon and now called The Crispus Attucks Theater). No matter how prestigious they are in our eyes today, those entertainers could not stay in “white” hotels, so they stayed at "the queen of Church Street’s” Plaza Hotel. Of these, sadly, the Attucks is all that remains.

Also gone are those other modes of transportation of the imagination (and often more family-oriented entertainment), the movie houses. Here black people sat in theaters only they patronized and watched “white” movies. Sandwiched between the Attucks and the Greenleaf was the George Washington Carver Theater (which started out as the Cavalier). An elderly commenter on Next Door said this theater was the “not so family-oriented, good time date night” venue where you slipped maybe “a little something medicinal” into your purse before you went in. It was two doors down from the Gem where they opened the doors at night so that the greasy fingers of that popcorn smell might lure patrons in. At 660 Church Street was the Dunbar, named for Paul Lawerence Dunbar, this one took up two whole storefronts!

Until integration and the advent of the “multicomplex” drew off their audiences these places thrived. It is understandable that the people whose lives surrounded Church Street should venture out to seek a larger piece of the pie the Norfolk Community had to offer. After the late 1950’s one by one they fell into disrepair and then, as the 1960’s advanced, they fell to the wrecking ball.

It should be a point of shame that “white” Norfolk did not make the cultural heart of Church Street part of its own body. As a result, the places where Ella Fitzgerald bought lipstick and Daddy Grace’s church staff hid pennies were allowed to slip away. Although I think that the staff and patrons of the Carver would be pleased to know that the Safe Creative Community Space now inhabits the place where so many memories were formed. It is an open space that alternates between garden, market, and gathering place. The one older building there now gazing out from the past is a long, low, mixed brick building that sits on Olney overlooking the open field that used to be packed with black homes and businesses like the Carver. The Watergate Market there sells soul food to go and it’s worth a visit.


About Dwight Easter: Digital folk artist, family man and bread merchant. Some of the best moments in my life are experiencing the power and influence of great art. I came up in the Norfolk era of the M80’s, Buttsteak, and Antic Hay.

5 QuestionsDwight Easter