Hopewell News

The Black Heritage Committee had their fourth annual black history celebration on Saturday, Jan. 13 at the Elks Lodge. The theme of this year's celebration was "Bridging our Past to our Future... Closing the Generation Gap."
Herb Bragg, chair of the Black Heritage Committee, said they wanted to bridge the generation gap because they wanted more young people to be aware of what has happened in the past.
“We feel history is always important and if we don't know our history we are doomed to repeat it.” Bragg said. “We want to be able to bridge our past to our future, and at the same time we want to close the generation gap. We want to bring in more young people in to realize history and why we've done what we've done and make it more inclusive of them.”
History tends to be an unpopular subject for young people, and Bragg said sometimes older adults and young people speak to each other as if they are using two different frequencies.
Henry Marsh, who was the first black mayor of Richmond and currently represents the 16th district in the state senate, said there were a lot of young people who didn't know that much about black history.
“I think it's important to have black heritage programs every year,” Marsh said. “There's so many of the younger people who don't really know that much about how we got where we really are.”
The program consisted of a variety of events, from minorities involvement in developing cutting edge technology to a performance of a one act play. Several students from Virginia State University displayed robotic creations. Gymama Slaughter, an assistant professor at VSU and director of the Richmond Area Program for Minorities in Engineering, said the goal of their program was to increase the number of minority scientists and engineers.
Theresa Gee performed a one act play called “Through the Eyes of Coretta Scott King.” The play was a monologue of King's life, who was the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr. The program also included a speech from Marsh, who is also a prominent black activist and practiced civil rights law in the 1960s.
The event also recognized Claiborne “Dickie” Gholson, a well known baseball coach in the Hopewell area. Several of Gholson's former players were in attendance, including the Rev. Curtis Harris.
“Dick brought many ballplayers into the City of Hopewell, professional ballplayers into Hopewell, including Jackie Robinson,” Harris recalled. “And I was happy to have an opportunity to play baseball against Jackie Robinson after he was in the majors.”
Many of Gholson's family members were at the program and received a proclamation. Bragg said the program was so diverse because they not only wanted to show the past but the future as well.