Description
<p>Hundreds of people attend the opening ceremony for Norfolk’s first urban renewal project, held on December 11, 1951. The crowd is segregated, with Black attendees standing across the street from the main stage. A bulldozer is staged next to the first structure to be torn down. The ceremony included speeches from Norfolk mayor W. Fred Duckworth, John S. Alfriend of the Norfolk Bank of Commerce, John P. Broome, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Public Housing Administration, and others. The only presenter who lived in the area set to be demolished was F.P. Wise, the reverend of Mount Lebanon Baptist Church, who delivered the invocation.</p>
