
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 29, 1995                   TAG: 9501310088
SECTION: STREET BY STREET                    PAGE: 5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

THE LOSS STILL STINGS

Leroy Campbell moved his family out of Northeast late in 1955. "Right after scuffling and paying for what you had, you had to go out and do it all over again. That really hurt." He got $5,000 from the housing authority and shared it with his mother so she could relocate, too. He got $3,000; she got $2,000.

Leroy and Dorothy Campbell became one of the first black families to move into the mostly white streets west of 10th Street Northwest. The site of their Northeast home is now near an "on" ramp for Interstate 581 and Roanoke Auto Spring Works, one of the industries that set up shop after urban renewal.

The white man who sold the Campbells his house at 1119 Hanover Ave. N.W. said he was leaving because blacks were coming in.

The remaining whites were not openly hostile. "They spoke and that's it," Terry Campbell says. "It wasn't long before they all were gone."

To the seven Campbell children, moving to a brick house seemed like fun. But their father went back into debt to do it.

"Oh, yes," Leroy Campbell said, "for lots of years." Later, Terry built him the brick ranch on Gilmer Avenue Northwest where he lives now.

With her money, Leroy Campbell's mother, Lula Campbell, found a small house on Rutherford Avenue Northwest.

In Gainsboro.

by CNB