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ONCE SELF SUFFICIENT AND INDEPENDENT STILL THRIVES TO SURVIVE

"Hobson, continue to trace its roots back to the early 1700's through a variety of deeds and land grants given to the freedmen prior to and just after the Civil War. These men and women were not land grabbers nor tricksters but FREED BLACKS who purchased the original 13 acres of what became Hobson; originally known as Barretts Neck situated in the lower parish of the Chuckatuck Borough of Nansemond County. Other portions of Hobson (now known today as Suffolk, VA from a merger of Suffolk and Nansemond County in 1974)) were either purchased or further deeded to the residents and their families as well as other FREE enslaved men. These men and their families developed a community that was proud, determined, spiritually based, thriving and self-sufficient and self-sustaining...for that period of time in U.S. history. They needed not to travel outside of their village to maintain a livelihood. These residents armed the land and/or worked the waterways as fishermen or oystermen. They built their own schools and churches to educate their children and to praise God for His goodness and His blessings. Hobson has been and is today the home of a determined group of people...American aboriginal people who happen to be BLACK. These are the descendents of the original folks who dug their own wells and devised and built their own watering aqueduct systems to provide running water to each and every home in Hobson. These are folks who developed the shoreline of Carter Cove Creek as a launching point for their fishing and oyster boats. These are the FREE ENSLAVED BLACK FAMILIES that worked to allow their children to go off to college, complete their education (a higher education that many of these residents were denied in their day), earn a degree and come back home to help preserve and enhance their home and community.

Hobson is not just a lay of land with buildings. It is a Village...a community with a history of FREE ENSLAVED BLACK MEN and WOMEN...struggling to make a home for themselves. Hobson represents the history of America. It represents a group of people "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps!" Hobson represents a family of families that quietly and strongly took what they had and developed it into a place of calm, pride and determination. Hobson was not a Village of lazy, shiftless people but of strong, hardworking men and women. It is a Village, despite all odds and neglects by local government and in some cases a determined effort to eradicate this Village, determined to remain a birthplace AND a BIRTHRIGHT to its descendents and its ancestors.

There is presented evidence of encroachment properties of Hobson landowners by the surrounding developments and activities that any rational individual would see as the beginning of the eradication of this village/community. There is print, photos, and verbal conversation of the struggles and efforts of this explanation of their cause; a branch of knowledge that records and explains past events; past events that form the subject matter of history; an established record. Hobson has presented a clear and thorough evidence of the "historical integrity" of Hobson Village in whole. We must point out that our efforts here today are not for vanity but for survival...FOR OURSELVES, OUR FOREPARENTS, OUR CHILDREN AND OUR AFRICAN AMERICAN FUTURE!!!

Too many African American villages/communities founded by FREE ENSLAVED MEN such as Rosewood, Florida or the original City of Tulsa, Oklahoma are nothing more than rusty road markers. It is our determination that Hobson will not become a ghost in history, a symbolic mention in the history books but continue on as a visible historic cornerstone in the African American community and among all folks, Black, White, Brown, Yellow or Red who are Americans. We ask that you recognize Hobson as that historical community it is for the integrity it gives to the American history in general, and the African American communities in particular. "