Won't You Be My Neighbor?:
Evelyn T. Butts, Local Black Leader Who Created Change
Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1924, Evelyn T. Butts was orphaned at the age of 10, dropped out of high school in tenth grade, and worked as a seamstress. She is most well known for her political activism. She challenged the poll tax in Virginia in an unusual case that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1966, making poll taxes unconstitutional and ending more than 60-years of using the tax as a barrier to voting for African Americans and poor people.
She went on to help found Concerned Citizens for Political Education which was active in electing Joseph Jordan in 1968 as Norfolk City Council’s first African American member in the twentieth century, and electing William P. Robinson the following year as the first African American to represent Norfolk in the House of Delegates.
Although she was never elected to office herself, the press regularly referred to her as one of the most powerful black politicians in Norfolk. It is not surprising that Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander found her life and work to be appropriate as the focus of his Ph.D. dissertation. She died in 1993 and is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk.
