NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A Newport News task force that is investigating how Christopher Newport University’s expansion in the 1960s dismantled a predominantly Black neighborhood will host a series of public meetings to hear first-hand how residents and the community were impacted.
The city said the meetings are intended to be listening sessions so that task force members can listen and better understand the perspectives of directly impacted families and community members, which will help inform the task force’s recommendation process.
Only a handful of residents of the Shoe Lane remain near and on university property. In 1961, an all-white city council in Newport News voted to dismantle the neighborhood for the city’s public use. The people living there were given only a fraction of what the land was worth…