Dr. Joanne Harris Lucas proudly stands beside a bust of her late father and Virginia civil rights leader, the Rev. Curtis W. Harris Sr., which was unveiled Saturday in front of Hopewell City Hall, where he served for 26 years on the city council and for two years as the city’s first Black mayor. The unveiling comes six years after his death in December 2017. He was arrested 13 times in leading protests against segregation in Hopewell and other parts of the state and led the Hopewell Branch NAACP and the Virginia Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for more than 20 years. During his 46 years as pastor of Union Baptist Church in Hopewell and during his tenure on council, he fought for environmental justice and opposed Hopewell commercial developments that impacted Black and poor people in the city.
