Emmy award-winning journalist Brandi Kellam’s work has been featured on ProPublica, CBS, NBC, ESSENCE, BET and more. Explore coverage and interviews from national breaking news stories to subject matter on housing, transportation, cannabis, and social justice below.
A Newport News task force, one of two recently established groups in Virginia investigating the historic displacement of Black communities by the state’s public universities, is facing allegations that it has not been open about its operations.
The groundbreaking commission, which was proposed in response to our “Uprooted” series, would consider compensation for dislodged property owners and their descendants. Whether Gov. Glenn Youngkin will sign the bill is unclear.
Spurred by our “Uprooted” series, a task force created by the city of Newport News and Christopher Newport University will reexamine decades of city and university records shedding light on a Black neighborhood’s destruction.
Following an investigation by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO and ProPublica, Del. Delores McQuinn introduces bill for a commission to investigate the displacement of Black neighborhoods by Virginia’s public colleges and universities
Black enrollment at Virginia’s Christopher Newport University fell by more than half under longtime president Paul Trible, a former Republican senator who wanted to “offer a private school experience.” By 2021, only 2.4% of full-time professors were Black.
In response to our reporting, state Delegate Delores McQuinn said a task force could shed light on the impact of college expansion in Virginia. Officials are also calling for displaced families to receive redress, from scholarships to reparations.
A provision in state law exempts college presidents’ “working papers and correspondence” from disclosure even after they step down — as we found out when we asked about one ex-president’s role in campus expansions that uprooted a Black neighborhood.
As a teenager, I competed in track meets at Christopher Newport University. As a reporter, I unearthed the painful history behind the campus’s location.
Sixty-plus years ago, the white leaders of Newport News, Virginia, seized the core of a thriving Black community to build a college. The school has been gobbling up the remaining houses ever since.
Lilian Echanerry said she had been struggling financially for nearly five months when she started having trouble making her rent payments last June. The mother of three had been using a Section 8 rental subsidy since 2020, when she was forced to move from her Newport News, Va., public housing at Ridley Place, a complex with more than 250 units that was torn down this past spring.
Lilian Echanerry said she had been struggling financially for nearly five months when she started having trouble making her rent payments last June. The mother of three had been using a Section 8 rental subsidy since 2020, when she was forced to move from her Newport News, Va., public housing at Ridley Place, a complex with more than 250 units that was torn down this past spring.
On Tuesday, November 8, Americans head to the polls to cast their ballot in what could be another record breaking turnout for voters who have participated in recent midterm elections. According to a Gallup poll released earlier this week, 41% of registered voters say they plan to vote early, up from 34% in the 2018 midterms, which itself had the highest midterm election voter turnout in modern day history.