In a 2004 interview with the Washington Post , Ricky Haynie of Haynie Farms in Virginia mentioned, “You know what my gravest fear for Black people is?” he asks. “That we’ll end up on reservations. That we won’t own any land.” The first Africans to arrive in Virginia in the early 1600s were displaced from their home communities. This would begin a long history of Black Virginians being forcefully displaced for centuries to come.
Most recently, the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism examined Black communities displaced by institutions of higher education in Virginia. Expanding more broadly statewide to include multiple categories of displacement, over a three-month period, each region in Virginia was examined for the total displacement of Black communities, such as Black neighborhoods, including businesses and religious organizations. Of 133 total jurisdictions in Virginia, 76 communities in 38 localities were noted as having Black communities that were displaced.
Virginia displacement instances were grouped into the following eight geographic regions: Eastern, Hampton Roads, Central, Northern, West Central, Southside, Valley, and Southwest. During the urban renewal effort alone, an estimated 7,996 families of color were displaced in Virginia…