The Shoe Lane Tract

The city of Newport News provided Christopher Newport College with the former John W. Daniel Elementary School as a temporary campus until a permanent one could be established. In early 1961 the city of Newport News expressed interest in obtaining the Shoe Lane property, with the possibility of making it the permanent campus of the emerging Christopher Newport College. William R. Walker, Jr. and others in the community banded together to form the Morrison Association in order to speak as one against the potential seizure of their homes.

Despite the community’s best efforts to draw attention to the racial motivations of the decision and that other plots of land were much better choices, the City Council voted on May 29th, 1961, to use the Shoe Lane property for the new campus. The Shoe Lane Controversy, as it has been called, strained race relations in the city and fueled tensions between local residents and Christopher Newport College, which would not see a steady enrollment of African American students until the early 1970s. ​