Armstrong High School
The New Armstrong High
The September 2004 merger of two Richmond city schools, Armstrong and Kennedy, brought two rival factions together into one building. Not only were the students from the schools used to competing against each other athletically, but they faced off in the neighborhoods and the streets as well. With students from four different housing projects all under the same Armstrong banner, there was both the hope that this would spur change in the community, and the fear of failure.
However, during the nine months I spent covering the school and the merger, it quickly became clear that these students had bigger things to worry about than fighting in the hallways of Armstrong High School.
“If you go in, you can’t leave,” security guards at Armstrong High School repeated to students trying to get into cafeteria B during the first lunch period. Security measures at the school are heightened during the three lunch periods, bathrooms are locked and gates block secondary hallways. However, here William “Pedi” Brice easily moves aside a gate while walking from the cafeteria area to another part of the school.
Tiana Crews (right), a ninth-grader at Armstrong High School, and her mother, Clarissa Beasley, sit on the front porch of their Churchill home after school. Tiana, who defines herself as gay, said she transferred from John Marshall to Armstrong because she thought the environment would be more tollerant and accepting.
Harold Thomas III, 14, works at Harold’s Kitchen on Richmond’s Southside every day after school. The restaurant has been in the family since 1971, when the first Harrold, Harrold III’s grandfather, opened it. Harold’s parents keep a close watch on him, making sure he stays out of trouble, his grades are up and preventing him from getting a cell phone.
Ronda Bates watches as her daughter Alise Bates and her boyfriend Demond Walton walk out of the kitchen to go to the Armstrong senior prom. Bates said that she thought this day would never happen for her daughter, who was shot in the stomach a month earlier in their Southside neighborhood. Alise did not return to school to finish her senior year.
“We do one day at a time,” said Allison Peterson, who has to start her day at 6:40 am to get the first of her seven children off to school. Peterson, who suffers from kidney failure and goes to dialysis three times a week, said her son, Anton, 16, a ninth-grader at Armstrong High School, helps her out a lot. Here, (LeftToRight) Peterson irons at the kitchen table surrounded by her children Alida, 10, Anton, 16, Lomia, 5, and Charnice, 7.
Natisha Syrkes, a senior at Armstrong High School, hurries to get her hair done for her graduation ceremony while her boyfriend Justice tries to calm down Syrkes’ 7-month-old son, Namonte. “He’s the dude, I’m the man, she’s the boss,” said Justice, who preferred to not disclose his last name, about his girlfriend and her son.
Jeremy Simmons, 17, a senior at Armstrong High School, gets a big hug from his mother outside of the Landmark Theatre, in Richmond, after his graduation ceremony. Simmons graduated from the new merged school, but chose to have Kennedy High School on his diploma.
Photos by Eva Russo
All photos @ Richmond Times-Dispatch
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