Truckin' on the Western Branch

Twin Pines in the late 1900s

Olanda Gibson said, Integration and the annexation of Norfolk County did not come easy to Twin Pines, even though we all came off the same plantation. Norfolk County and Portsmouth used to work together. How did the annexation happen? The citizens got messed over. It was all the politicians. I had been head of Twin Pines Civic League and represented it on the Norfolk County Council that was made up of civic leagues. We’d decide who to support and then talk to residents about who to vote for. Back then a white man could come in here and take over. We blacks wouldn’t fight back for fear of retaliation. We saw what happened further south and didn’t want that here. We really couldn’t do anything. But I was upset when someone threw a firebomb thru the living room window—it could have burned down the house. It could have been someone from the neighborhood—but I put it on someone from the outside.

I was glad when the farms went away and there was no more fieldwork.

Twin Pines has lost a lot of older residents. Younger people rushed away from here because there were no amenities and then came back to the neighborhood when they were old.

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