by Harry Minium

Hero is a term that is so overused that it seems at times to have lost its meaning.

You’re not a hero if you do the right thing. That makes you a good person.

You’re only a hero if you do the right thing when it takes courage to do so.

By that definition, Ken Whitley was a hero as a 15-year-old freshman at Norview High School.

It was 1959 and Norfolk was a segregated city. A federal judge had ordered that Norfolk’s schools be integrated. Seventeen brave African-Americans, all hand-picked by the NAACP, enrolled in previously all-white schools.

Many white students objected going to school with Black kids and they shunned, hassled and sometimes beat the unwelcome newcomers.

James Turner Jr. was one of the 17 and enrolled at Norview, along with his friend, Andy Heidelberg. One morning, as Whitley got off a school bus and began to enter Norview, he saw six white kids beating Turner.

Hundreds of students were gathered around, some laughing and jeering. Only Whitley came to his aid.

“Six on one? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right,” Whitley told me a few years ago.

So, he threw his books down, got a running start and started grabbing guys and slinging them to the ground.

Any one of you who wants to fight after school, show up here and I’ll kick your ass, he yelled at the six guys, who slinked away.

Whitley was a stud athlete who would start at fullback and linebacker for the 1959 Norview state championship team and also wrestled. No one messed with Whitley. He was Turner’s guardian the rest of the year. Continue reading.