Exhibit depicts events around desegregation in Norfolk

NORFOLK

Members of the Norfolk 17 and the Lost Class of '59 stood around a high school yearbook in a display case at the Chrysler Museum of Art on Friday and pointed at it as if it were Exhibit A.

The setting was a new exhibit at the museum, "50 Years Later: The Lessons of Massive Resistance."

The display, which will be up through March 1, gives a chronology of events that led to and followed the closing of six all-white junior high and high schools in Norfolk from fall 1958 until Feb. 2, 1959, to avoid desegregation. News clippings, photos and other items flesh out the story.

The Norfolk 17 were the first black students to integrate the schools when they reopened.

The Lost Class consisted of 1,300 seniors from the three high schools, only half of whom returned to their schools. They were among about 10,000 white students in Norfolk whose school year was disrupted.

"Look at what they featured," said Suzanne Baker Horton of Virginia Beach, a member of the Lost Class. She indicated a Norview High School annual opened to a page where portraits of two black girls were crossed out with blue ink.

"Out of all the positive things, I'm very disappointed in that," Horton said. Several white women, mostly members of the Lost Class, agreed: The presentation made them squeamish.

Pat Turner of Norfolk, one of the Norfolk 17, approached the group and saw what was at issue. "This was not wonderful for us," Turner told them. "This needs to be shown.

"So much has been hidden. And to see all of us together shows how far we've come," Turner said.

As the discussion continued and faces reddened with feelings, Turner said to the group, "OK, give me a hug!" The cluster of women embraced, smiled and wiped their eyes.

The exhibition is part of a citywide commemoration of the end of what was dubbed Massive Resistance.

Bill Hennessey, the museum's director and organizer of the exhibit, observed the women's interaction.

"The point of this whole commemoration is to get people talking," he said, "positively and respectfully."

Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485, teresa.annas@pilotonline.com