Author Description

During the first half of the 20th Century, Hopewell, Virginia, was a town where thousands of people, in large numbers at the same time, arrived to work at the DuPont Plant. If ever there was a melting pot town in America, Hopewell was it. However, enormous problems resulted from its growth. In the words of a local town minister, the city was an "amazingly unreal town...a town of perilous work and perilous play...of incredible gambling halls...wild women, cardsharks and con-artists." Speaking reminiscently of this era sixty years later, the Hopewell News said it was a time when "Few men yelled Help! in the same language...where men stood in line at brothels..in such places as Death Valley." Although this book primarily examines the social, political, and economic relationship between blacks and whites in Hopewell, it draws the reader to examine more closely the institutions and interests which shape the attitudes of its citizens.