Interviews and Oral Histories
Overview
Several themes emerge in the interviews and oral histories archived here, which include residents, advocates, and former public officials. These include life in the now-demolished Harbor Homes, Dickerson Courts, and Ridley Circle, the effects of coal dust on property and household finances, that coal dust pollution is a daily nuisance to residents, the prevalence of health ailments associated with coal dust exposure, especially respiratory illnesses, and the inadequate response of agencies and offices with the authority to take protective actions, especially the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ).
Repair Lab Oral Histories, 2023–2025
All interviews by the Repair Lab were collected by Adrian Wood, with transcriptions by Adrian Wood and Jackie Hertz.
Southeast Newport News
Donquitta Clements, Resident and Community Organizer, Interview Audio | Transcript, June 28, 2023
Millie Taylor and Raymond Wazeeradin with Yugonda Sample-Jones, Residents, Interview Audio | Transcript, June 30, 2023
Mr. Smiley, Resident, Interview Audio | Transcript, June 30, 2023
Yugonda Sample-Jones, Resident and Organizer with the East End Civic Association and Repair Lab, Interview Audio | Transcript, June 30, 2023
Lawrence Turner, Resident and Youth Football Coach, Interview Audio | Transcript, July 7, 2023
Yugonda Sample-Jones, Resident and Organizer with the East End Civic Association and Repair Lab, Interview Audio | Transcript, February 27, 2024
Frankie Williams, Resident, Interview Audio | Transcript, February 27, 2024
Anonymous, Resident, Interview Audio | Transcript, April 20, 2024
Anonymous, Resident, Interview Audio | Transcript, April 20, 2024
Uneita Scott, Resident, Interview Audio | Transcript, April 20, 2024
Patricia Taylor, Resident and Community Leader, Interview Audio | Transcript, November 2, 2024
Jannie Bazemore, Resident and Daughter of Activist Louis Bazemore, Interview Audio | Transcript, May 1, 2025
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Photograph: Ms. Jannie Bazemore holds a wipe covered in coal dust from her porch in one hand and a photograph of her mother doing the same thing 40 years earlier, May 1, 2025. Photograph by Adrian Wood.
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Photograph: Ms. Jannie Bazemore holds a wipe covered in coal dust from her porch in one hand and a photograph of her mother doing the same thing 40 years earlier, May 1, 2025. Photograph by Adrian Wood.
Lambert's Point
Kim Williams, Resident, Interview Audio | Transcript, May 11, 2023
Malcolm Jones, Lathaniel Kirts, and Billy Mercury, Residents, Interview Audio | Transcript, May 30, 2023
Carl Poole, Resident and Organizer with New Virginia Majority, Interview Audio | Transcript, July 1, 2023
Atsuko Bernot and Imani Newsome, Residents and Activists, Interview Audio | Transcript, August 2, 2025
Public Figures and Officials
Faith Harris, Member of the Virginia Council on Environmental Justice (VACEJ) and Leader of Virginia Interfaith Power and Light, Interview Audio | Transcript, October 1, 2023
Sheila McAllister, Former Director of City Planning for the City of Newport News, Interview Audio | Transcript, November 14, 2023
Renee Hoyos, Former Director of the VA DEQ Office of Environmental Justice, Interview Audio | Transcript, May 4, 2023
Testimonies Archived by Coal Dust Kills, 2023–present
The Repair Lab collects and shares residents' testimonies anonymously (with initials rather than names) submitted to the Coal Dust Kills website: coaldustkills.com. Some of these testimonies were included in the Repair Lab report, Coal Dust in Southeast Newport News is a Nuisance and There Are Solutions. The Coal Dust Kills website also shares testimonies in the public record from Newport News City Council meetings and the interviews and oral histories archived above.
"[T]his black dust is terrible, all over in my house, in my chairs, terrible in my attic. But the worst thing it is that we breathe all that dust, and I be getting sinus problems and a lot of flama on my throat. I am not a smoker nor a drinker type of person. I like to eat healthy and exercise but this dust is just too much."
—N. H., Newport News Resident
"I wanted to provide a testimonial for our experience with the coal yard in our backyard. Three years ago, we installed solar panels on our roof to provide almost all the electricity our building uses. There are about 160 solar panels up there. For 2.5 years, they worked very well and our electric bill was typically zero. Beginning 6 months ago, I noticed our bill was creeping up and each month we owed a little more. When I went on the roof to see if I could identify the cause, it was obvious that the panels were coated with a black smudge. I hired a guy to clean all the panels for $1,300 and we saw an immediate improvement in their output. I’m watching them very carefully now to see how often that cleaning will be required. I also noticed that before, when I drove past the coal yard, they had sprinklers running 24/7 to keep the dust down. Lately, I’ve seen that they are never on. I feel pretty sure that the lack of sprinklers and the coatings on our panels are related."
—S. K., Newport News Business Owner
"I live in the Christopher Shores neighborhood of Newport News and have a white vinyl sided home and one of the largest trees in the neighborhood. From what I have read there is a 3rd now study going on regarding that coal yard. They are welcome to come and take coal samples from my house or watch black droplets form on the tips of the leaves on the tree in a light rain. They know the fine particle spread of the coal dust. Anyone that has driven 664 at the M&M entrance and exit on the Newport News side has seen the black fog in high winds. The spray water is only a mitigation and that is no more than a Band-Aid on a bleed out. They complain of algae growth in the river and the bay, one of the chief contributors sits right here in NEWPORT NEWS. That coal has been there since I was a child and I’m 67 (was from Petersburg and played in Lincoln Park as a child.) It is time that the city, state, and federal government do more than mitigate. With today’s construction technics the entire yard, rails, and boat docks need to go under roof. It is just that simple. Stop giving it just a splash of water, or better yet they need to splash some of that water in their faces and wake up. They worried about asbestos at the shipyard, more consideration needs to be given to black lung as a contributing factor. We have been told and raised to understand moderation, avoid excesses, and long term exposure. The effects of cold dust on miners are well documented. Time to stop studying, time to ensure the safety of Newport News residents and not just the ones on the upper end. Need to look at heavy metal contents in the waters down here in the bottoms too! Do a random water test at Achievable Dreams on 16th, measure the pollutant levels in the ground there. That’s where most of our children spend their 180 days of school. What about the bacteria levels found in the clams at Lincoln Park? Is all that coal in the water helping to propagate that growth? Or is it raw sewage! There are a lot of issues in this end of town and it is time for Newport News to stop ignoring them."
—D. B., Newport News Resident
"My wife and I purchased, and not renting, our newly built home in 2006 on [redacted]. Our home is light blue with white trimming and the coal dust not only mars the color of the residence (that must be power washed at least 4 times during the warmer months), the coal dust also deters me from making aesthetically pleasing enhancements because it adheres itself on every surface that’s on the outside of my residence and also gets on the inside of my home (meaning that the inside air quality is compromised)."
—S. S., Newport News Resident
"Southeast Community, you see that all day riding these bikes, driving down, you can see it in the air. You see it on most buildings. Especially, I grew up with like [a] Chinese restaurant down here, barber shops. Sometimes you see it on people's cars, like, I’m going to say soot, just like a dust. Black dust. It was kind of like, sandy. My mother has asthma from living down here. We moved away from there at one point cause my mom got bad asthma. Some people just couldn't be around it. It was bad because it’s in the air, you know, and people driving with their windows down. Because I know we used to catch it in our noses and try to get away from it. Honestly, it wasn't enjoyable, just driving, just on a good day. And I know a lot of the community down there that they tore down [Dickerson Court and Harbor Homes] had it bad because they were close to it, and it’s right by the bridge. It really is not hard to see, and it’s just something that’s been overlooked for so long. I think because people never complained about it, it became normal. The people that did complain never got the spotlight. And nobody never took it to the next level."
—M. J., Newport News Resident
"There's a particular problem that we have in the south part of the city with coal dust. We have trains moving massive amounts of coal and dumping it into a yard and it feeds ships. The coal dust is a problem because if you have mechanical contact of stones like coal falling, you generate relatively small particles of around 10 or 15 microns from interaction. The coal dust spreads into local neighborhoods. Some of the coal contains heavy metals, things like lead. This can be injurious to lungs, especially young lungs, and that’s why I’m here today. I’m here because I’m a retired scientist, 75. I’m concerned that we do adequate monitoring of the coal dust in particular neighborhoods of Newport News. We need strict regulation to tamp down on that production of coal dust. There are means to do it."
—T. S., Newport News Resident
Hampton Roads Oral History Project
The Hampton Roads Oral History Project (HROHP) is an audio-based history project, documenting the impact of the civil rights movement on area residents. It was established in the fall of 2012 by Christopher Newport University Prof. Laura Puaca in collaboration with the Newsome House Museum and Cultural Center and the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center. Most of the interviews were carried out by students.
Multiple interviews mention coal for heating,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] coal mining,[8] and coal trains.[9][10][11]
Mapping Lambert's Point
In 2016, a group of undergraduate and graduate students from Old Dominion University interviewed residents who grew up in Lambert’s Point during the 1950s and 1960s to learn about how the neighborhood has changed over time. The students also gathered historical accounts of life in the neighborhood from the early 20th century in the Norfolk Journal and Guide. This archive is available to the public on Mapping Lambert's Point, featuring transcribed interviews and photographs that highlight residents's stories and mapped to the places that shaped their experiences in the neighborhood.[12]
Media Featuring Interviews with Residents
Council Gets Air Pollution Control Plan, Daily Press, December 18, 1956
"...the air is constantly filled with this soot to the extent that it seeps through the window casing and accumulates on the window sills... [it has become] an increasingly serious problem to the administration and a treat to our patients."
—Sister M. Euphrasia, Mary Immaculate Hospital Administrator
Dust Covered Apartments (Continued from Page 1), Daily Press, May 5, 1984
"We're worried about getting black lung."
—Gary Alvis, Automotive Maintenance Manager, Newport News Redevelopment and Housing Authority
"[Coal dust] gets into the apartments, it get all over the furniture and on the clothes and on the floor."
—Gloria Tabb, Tenants' Council President
Vogelsong, Virginia Will Begin Monitoring Air Pollution around Hampton Roads Coal Terminals: Residents of Newport News’ East End Say There’s Been Too Many Studies and Too Little Action, Virginia Mercury, April 19, 2022
Janney, Study Aims to Test Effects of Coal Dust, but Residents are Skeptical Change Will Come, The Virginian Pilot, November 3, 2023
"We don't need monitors. We are the monitors. Our homes are the monitors. All you've got to do is come out and understand. And if you think it's a joke, power wash some of these houses and come back in two weeks and you can then begin to see what we are subjugated to on a daily and weekly basis."
—Ernest Thompson, Newport News Resident
Hollingsworth, Newport News Residents Voice Concerns about Coal Pollution, 3WTKR, January 23, 2024
Saitta, Newport News Residents Say Coal Dust is the Source of Some Health Problems, WTKR, April 20, 2024
"'My older sister and I would play and we would see coal on the windowsills,' said Scott. 'It was nothing for us to see coal on the ground and our mother would fuss because when we would come in our feet would be dirty from the coal.' At the time, Scott said she thought nothing of it until her older sister, Erica, became ill. 'Her diagnosis was a coal miner's lung so they had to amputate it for her to have a healthy life. At 14 years old, doctors verbatim said she had the lung of a 30-year-old that worked in the coal mines.'"
—Danielle Saitta Interviewing Uneita Scott, Newport News Resident
Resources and Materials: See for Yourself and Dig Deeper
Coal Dust in Southeast Newport News is a Nuisance and There Are Solutions (Corrected), Repair Lab, August 2024
Visit Next
The Front Porch and Community Action
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You can also email the Repair Lab at editor@voicesinthedust.org or call, text, or send a voice memo to (757) 317-0356. If you prefer, a Repair Lab team member can record your story in person or collect physical materials to digitize and then return them to you.
Sources
- ↑ Mary Walker Blowe interviewed by R. Joshua Sipe, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, September 28, 2015.
- ↑ Kathleen and William Brown interviewed by Sam Raimondo and Ben Perkins, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, November 17, 2016.
- ↑ Mittie Jean Ward Dixon interviewed by Charlene Jackson and Antonia Comfort, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, October 17, 2016.
- ↑ Helen H. Foster interviewed by Lauren Picard and Hannah Patton, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, October 22, 2014.
- ↑ Elwood Hill interviewed by R. Joshua Sipe, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, October 22, 2014.
- ↑ Bertha Johnson interviewed by Samantha Cain and Rachel Marsh, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, October 13, 2012.
- ↑ Albert McIver, Jr. interviewed by R. Joshua Sipe and Alexander Szymanski, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, October 18, 2014.
- ↑ Willie Edwards interviewed by Shantel Hudgins and Alanah Daniels, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, October 30, 2012.
- ↑ William Morgan interviewed by R. Joshua Sipe, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, October 22, 2015.
- ↑ Lovett Ernest Gaither interviewed by Erik C. Branting and Frank D. Pelli, Jr., The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, October 26, 2012.
- ↑ Rosetta Mask-Griffin interviewed by Caitlyn Hickey and Zachary Keener, The Hampton Roads Oral History Project, October 22, 2014.
- ↑ Vera, ODU Looks to Shed Light on "Neighborhood without a Voice,” The Virginian Pilot, September 20, 2016.