By Gary Ruegsegger
Correspondent
NORFOLK COMPASS
Over the winter holidays, Verdonda Alexander Wright reached into a box of old black-and-white photographs and pulled out a memory.
The memory, compliments of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and her father, Samuel Alexander, was an 8-by-10 print of her holding a portrait of the civil rights leader when he visited Norfolk in 1966. The original photo of King also was in the box.
"I remember standing next to my father when he took the picture of Dr. King, but I have no memory of him taking the second picture," Wright said.
Both photos were made when Wright was 9. Her father made the portrait of King in the choir room of New Calvary Baptist Church, at 800 E. Virginia Beach Blvd., on Oct. 30, 1966.
"People were standing in a long line in front of the church. We stood on the median strip on Virginia Beach Boulevard, for I don't know how long, just waiting for a place to stand on the sidewalk," Wright recalled
"Back then, I didn't have a clue who Dr. King was, but I knew he must have been somebody important for all those people to be waiting to see him."
King's appearance at New Calvary turned out to be his last visit to the area. He had scheduled a tour of seven Virginia cities, including Norfolk and Suffolk, beginning March 30, 1968.
At the last minute, he postponed the Virginia tour to go to Memphis where an assassin's bullet ended his life on April 4, 1968.
Sam Alexander worked in the central claims department at the downtown Norfolk post office, but photography was his first love.
That and his little girl. He called her "Donnie."
Like his daughter, his Rolleiflex camera was always nearby. He developed his pictures in the bathroom at their home on Covel Street in Campostella Heights.
At the post office and in the neighborhood, they called him "Sam the Camera Man."
As his little girl watched, Alexander shot his photos as Norfolk changed in the 1950s and '60s.
If Norfolk civil rights leader Evelyn Butts held a rally or attorney Joseph Jordan gave a speech, Sam and his "tag-along" Donnie were there.
The boxes of photographs in Wright's home document their adventures together.
They witnessed the arrival of the "Lady Bird Special" during Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign, Count Basie's concert at the Center Theater and the funeral procession of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Sam Alexander died on March 19, 1973, but his photographs still bring back memories both old and new.
Gary Ruegsegger,
ruegsegger2@earthlink.com
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