THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 4, 1994 TAG: 9411020159
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JUDY PARKER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 196 lines
LOYALTY IS DEFINED by Webster's New World Dictionary as ``suggesting a steadfast devotion of an unquestioning kind that one may feel for one's family, friends, or country.''
For some, I.C. Norcom High demands the same type of allegiance, and is a principle by which many live. To be a graduate of Norcom is akin to belonging to a multigenerational family.
That loyalty will be visible this weekend, as the alumni association hosts nearly a thousand returning graduates for the school's Second Grand Reunion.
When Norcom's Greyhounds take to the football field Saturday against Norview's Pilots, sitting in the stands at Frank D. Lawrence Stadium will be the mother-daughter duo of Bessie Geneva Branch Richards, class of 1926, and Deborah Richards, class of 1976.
``Norcom was the only school blacks had in Portsmouth for a very long time,'' Bessie Richards, a retired guidance counselor, said during an interview in the Hatton Point home she and her daughter share.
``It was our only source for an education, so I think we just naturally came to have a very strong love for the school,'' Richards said, describing what was for 89 years Portsmouth's `separate but equal' higher educational resource for its black citizens.
When Bessie Richards was a student, I.C. Norcom High School was located near South and Chestnut Streets, across from the present day Ida Barbour public housing complex. The first two floors of the building were used for the George Peabody Elementary School, while the top floor housed the high school. That building, now boarded up, later became the Riddick-Weaver Center.
The first black, or colored, high school in Portsmouth, the High Street School, was in a building just off the city's main thoroughfare. The site is now an empty lot behind the Club DePorres on High Street.
It was in that building in 1883 that Israel Charles Norcom became principal. Norcom, who was born in Edenton, N.C., in September 1856, came to Portsmouth after attending The Andover School, a Yale University prep school; Hampton Institute; and the University of Virginia. He remained the school's principal until his death in March 1916.
As a tribute, the Portsmouth School Board renamed the Chestnut Street school in his honor. The present I.C. Norcom High School moved to a new building at Turnpike Road and Frederick Boulevard in 1953.
Norcom, the man and the school, have been credited with instilling in students, faculty and staff a sense of pride, self-worth and self-confidence.
``True education of boys and girls is to teach them what they ought to know when they become men and women,'' Norcom has been quoted as saying.
Perhaps, however, the one statement attributed to the long-time educator, ``Do not be satisfied with being a mere individual . . . live the abundant life,'' best sums up the message that Norcom and his successors, especially William E. Waters, have tried to pass on.
Waters was principal at Norcom from 1942 until his death in 1966.
``Mr. Waters was a strict disciplinarian, but a great humanitarian,'' said his 85-year-old widow Ruth Roberts Waters.
``He simply loved all the children, and did everything he could to help them believe they could accomplish anything they set their minds and wills to.
``At the close of every commencement, for example,'' she said, ``he would challenge the graduates that `only their best is sufficient.' ''
Ruth Waters, a 1927 graduate, also retired from the school in 1975 as director of guidance and teacher of social studies.
``Mr. Waters always expressed that he was only as strong as his strongest teacher,'' Mrs. Waters said, ``and he therefore expected the very best from his faculty.
``While he stressed that each student should always strive for the very best in the classroom, he also introduced the children to the finer things. It was Mr. Waters who started the practice of playing classical music over the speaker system each morning before classes began.
``And he also insisted that the children dress appropriately, and treat one another with respect,'' she said.
``If there was a disciplinary problem, the child would be sent home and within an hour the child would be back at school with their mother. Mr. Waters did not tolerate misbehavior.''
The legacy left by Norcom and Waters has resulted in succeeding generations of graduates bonding.
``I was in the band under Mr. Emery Fears,'' said Shiree Brown Moody, a member of the so-called last class of 1972.
(In December and January 1972, Norcom's United Black Students Association staged a series of boycotts and walkouts in an attempt to keep the school from becoming an integrated, technical/academic facility as initially proposed by the School Board in 1969, a proposal in accordance with desegregation plans approved by the U.S. District Court. Some Norcom alumni now refer to the years before 1972 as the ``Old Norcom'' and to the years since as the ``New Norcom.'')
``Mr. Fears would give us a fit . . . he constantly told us we could be the best . . . that we were the best,'' Moody said.
``At that time, the school was still segregated, and the teachers could tell us that even though we weren't getting the best supplies and books . . . if we pushed ourselves, we could be as good or even better than students in schools with the best of everything.
``That was especially true of Mr. Fears, who constantly told us to not let our guard down . . . that to get ahead in society we would have to be better and strive harder. That's a lesson that never left me,'' Moody said.
``In fact, my experiences at Norcom, and the lessons I learned from my teachers there, prepared me for (The College of) William and Mary,'' said Moody, a social worker for the city's Social Services Department.
Deborah Richards, who graduated from Norcom 50 years after her mother and four years after the turbulence of 1972, recalls a Norcom free of racial tension and solid in academics.
``The new Norcom, I think, is a good thing,'' said Richards, a computer operator.
``It was a homey-type place to me . . . I don't recall any major discipline problems, and everyone just seemed to embrace each other regardless of color.
``The emphasis was on class work, and whether you were going to college or straight into the workplace, you knew you'd leave Norcom with a solid foundation to succeed.''
Bill Booker, class of '63, gives credit to former teachers Rachel Norcom Smith and Roosevelt Harmon for his successes as an entrepreneur in several business ventures.
``Basically, through my instructors at Norcom I learned there was a world of opportunity beyond Portsmouth,'' Booker said from his fast-food restaurant in Norfolk's Downtown Plaza shopping center.
``They helped me develop a good business sense. I remember Mrs. Smith bringing me articles from The Wall Street Journal about successful black businessmen.
``Unfortunately, at the time I was starting out, I didn't think I could be successful in Portsmouth. There were few small businesses, and certainly no African-American businesses here.''
So Booker, now a Gloucester resident, moved to Los Angeles in 1969. He opened a mortgage firm, a kosher deli, a laundromat, liquor store and cash-checking business before returning to the East Coast three-and-a-half years ago.
``I'll never forget Mr. Harmon's year-ending talk just before graduation,'' Booker recalled. ```This is the place . . . now is the time to start preparing for the future.''
Phyllis Moody Angus was a sophomore at Norcom in 1954 when classes were interrupted so students could hear a radio broadcast announcing the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The landmark case held that the doctrine of ``separate but equal,'' as it related to school segregation, was unconstitutional.
``Doc Waters taught that education is a privilege . . . not a right, and that school (Norcom) was our temple,'' said Angus, a retired teacher.
``Norcom was the epitome of what an educational institution ought to be. As a student you knew that you belonged there . . . were respected there . . . that your needs would be met there. In the strictest sense of the word, it was like being a member of a tightknit family.
``Our teachers were role models who set high standards that helped us develop a positive self-image.
Teaching us to always strive for the very best never came off to us as something bad . . . we weren't taught that the white world was out to get us,'' Angus said.
``It was hammered into us that if we worked hard, applied ourselves . . . you know, the Protestant work ethic . . . we would be successful.
``I guess that's why I'll never feel inferior to anyone.''
Unlike Deborah Richards, Beatrice Wilson, class of '46, recalls a Norcom ``separate and quite unequal.''
``We had no gym . . . no cafeteria . . . no auditorium,'' Wilson said of the Chestnut Street location. ``I guess people were so brainwashed . . . as if that was the way things were meant to be . . . that they just accepted those conditions.
``When the boys played football, they just played their game and then went home to take a bath because the school had no showers.
``But there was still a tremendous loyalty to the school throughout the city. Most (black) students went there, just like their parents and grandparents. I don't think any other institution, except the church, received so much support.''
With the end of segregation, however, Wilson asserts, the uniqueness that once described Norcom changed.
``Having instructors belonging to your same ethnic group created a bond. Once the schools became integrated, there was a difference in the level of commitment from teachers to students,'' Wilson concluded.
To prove her point, Wilson said that once Norcom was integrated, student participation in programs like the drama club declined.
``The white faculty found it hard to participate . . . there was no intermingling. Also, the white teachers were afraid to discipline black children,'' the retired special education teacher said.
But Wilson offers another reason for graduates' loyalty to Norcom.
``After World War II, many more people had the means to go to college. Prior to that time, most people didn't go to college. For most African-Americans in Portsmouth, that school (Norcom) was their only alma mater.'' MEMO: Norcom alma mater:
For you dear Norcom, we declare
A love that's ever true
Allegiance Alma Mater dear
We just swear to you
Deep in our hearets you hold a place
No other school could hold
Forever and a day we're yours
Yes, yours a thousand fold.
Main story is on page 8.
ILLUSTRATION: File photo
In 1972, protests erupted over converting Norcom into a technical
center.
KEYWORDS: DESEGREGATION RACE RELATIONS I.C. NORCOM HIGH SCHOOL
PORTSMOUTH SCHOOL BOARD by CNB