Salute to African American Heroes of Newport News
Newport News Public Library
Innovation Synopsis
The "We Stand for Justice: A Salute to African American Heroes" program is part of a multicomponent project documenting the socio-political history of the Southeast Community (a historically African American community) and recognizing the past contributions of African Americans to the city as a whole and the Southeast Community in particular.
Challenge/Opportunity
The Library System has three major objectives for the program:
• To pay tribute to those African Americans whose activism has produced an enduring historical legacy in the Southeast Community and the City of Newport News.
• To educate the larger community of the important and rich historical legacy of the Southeast Community.
• To create a digital historical repository of the Southeast Community for future researchers.
Key Elements of Innovation
This program began as a result of citizen requests to expand the resources related to African Americans in the Martha Woodroof Hiden Memorial Virginiana Room Collection. In comparison to the other local communities' histories, documents and artifacts relating to the Southeast community’s history were sparse. Especially lacking were documents and artifacts on historical eras such as slavery, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow Era, and the Civil Rights Movement. This program was a solution to this problem.
Achieved Outcomes
The outcomes of this program are significant. Honorees are featured in a documentary and their photos are added to the We Stand for Justice Wall. The documentary is used to educate the community as to the contributions of African American citizens. The documentary is also used as a training aid by City Leadership for Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives. The We Stand for Justice Wall exhibit is displayed prominently in City Hall during the month of February.
