VIRGINIA BEACH — New Light was established in the late 1800s by former slaves who found work after leaving the Princess Anne County Freedmen’s Bureau government farms, Mayor Bobby Dyer said during a ceremony in which a sign celebrating the neighborhood and its heritage was unveiled this past month.
It is one of 14 historic African-American communities within the city, and four communities already have gotten or soon will get signs as part of a city effort championed by City Councilmember Dr. Amelia Ross-Hammond. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure all 14 communities will have new or improved signage.
Here in New Light, long ago, residents saved money while working on farms and purchased land for themselves to farm and support their families, Ross-Hammond said during remarks. New Light was a place where Black people built something together during Reconstruction and the years that followed.
“The New Light neighborhood was one of those neighborhoods and is part of this history,” Dyer said on Sunday, Nov. 24.
“We must preserve the past and recognize the neighborhood’s early founders,” Ross-Hammond said during the event.
In New Light, where people built community businesses and fought for services such as mail delivery, many worshipped together.
“The largest gathering in the neighborhood was at the church,” Hawkins-Hendrix and Lucas wrote, speaking of the founding of New Light Baptist Church, which opened its doors in the 1890s.
Fittingly, the new sign is near what today is New Light Full Gospel Baptist Church at Indian River Road and Church Street. Many who attended the ceremony walked to it from the church and later walked back for a reception.
“This is an important day because we are ensuring that this community is being identified as a historic African-American community that it has been for many, many years,” City Councilmember Sabrina Wooten of District 7 said.
She said African-American communities throughout the city have not been recognized for their achievements.
“Today signifies recognition of what you have done in this neighborhood as a community,” Wooten said.
“I noticed many historic African-American neighborhoods throughout the city did not have signs to identify them,” said Ross-Hammond, a retired professor who also is the founder and chairman of the Virginia African American Cultural Center.
She thought it was a shame some people were unaware of the history these communities have had within the city. She decided some funding from the budget reconciliation process, which council members could put toward district projects, could be used throughout the city — regardless of district — to identify and recognize these important communities.
The city plans to place signs at all 14 neighborhoods, she added, after initial efforts at Beechwood, Burton Station, New Light and Queen City.
Speakers included Pastor Eugene Cowan II, senior pastor of the church, and longtime resident Otealia Jennings, who Cowan called the mother of the church.
Ross-Hammond asked Jennings to stand, noting her importance to the community.
“Ninety-three years young,” Ross-Hammond said.
Jennings approached the microphone to speak.
“I was born in the New Light community,” she said. “There were people who told me my mother brought me to New Light Baptist Church when I was a baby.”
This remains her community.
“It’s really a good place to live,” she said, remembering her time at the schoolhouse within the neighborhood, the start of her journey toward higher education.
After the ceremony, people gathered near the road for the unveiling of the sign and photographs with it, first in a group and then with loved ones.
Quenya Warrick, 22, was there.
“I grew up here,” she said. “My grandparents grew up here.”
She mentioned three houses nearby, past the church, built by her great grandfather, who she also said helped build the church sanctuary.
Her parents met at the church.
“There’s a lot of history here,” Warrick said.
“You want the neighborhood to be acknowledged,” her mother, Toyia Warrick, said. “This is a big acknowledgement.”
It’s a recognition of the people who started everything, Quenya Warrick said, and of what New Light is today.
“My heart is full,” she said.
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