There's a new exhibit at
the Hampton History Museum.
It's called the make sure I get it.
Get this right here.
Tea totallers did I get it right?
And my clothes.
Rollers. Teetotalers.
I knew I was gonna mess it up.
Teetotalers and moonshiners and
Hamptons prohibition history.
It explores Hamptons long
history with alcohol.
There are so many stories here,
hopefully we can get to a few
of them in the next few minutes.
We're going to talk now to
Lucy Cochran and Willow Pell,
and we thank you both for being here.
This is so interesting because
there are so many fascinating
stories that go along with this.
Exhibit.
But first let's just get a general overview.
What exactly are we talking about here?
Well, it's the story
of alcohol and it's impact on our community.
I think a lot of people don't realize that
from colonization we had a lot of alcohol.
Our basically our economy was
significantly involved with alcohol,
even our social life and they
drink a prodigious amount of
alcohol from early colonial period.
But. As our world changed,
people got concerned about how much
alcohol was being taken in and that's when
you saw the prohibition come into play.
But for this, it is a wonderful
opportunity for this exhibit.
It's a wonderful opportunity for
us to work with the Library of
Virginia and a wonderful partner
with Old Point National Bank.
So we have created this great
exhibit that shows the picture
from the Virginia State story.
But Hampton has such an amazing local story
and Willow will tell us all about that.
Yeah, I wanna ask about that for sure,
because a lot of people hear
prohibition and they think like
the sensational stories, right.
So can you kind of talk about
what people will learn here and
if we do have some sensational
stories ourselves? Yeah, so.
You see a lot of things about
prohibition about like gangsters,
New York, Chicago, those big cities.
But here in Hampton and the local area,
we had a little bit of that as well.
But it's not quite in the
the flashy same sort of way.
But there's still stories about
corruption and the ways that the
law was leveraged against different
groups of people in different ways.
And so some of those stories
are things that we go into.
But alcohol touches,
as you mentioned,
on a lot of aspects of life.
And so when it goes away.
There's a lot that changes
now. I don't wanna you know,
give away the exhibit cause we want
people to come and see for themselves.
But give us like 1 fascinating
story that you found. Well,
one of the more fascinating
stories that we uncovered was the
story of the racial disparity and
the enforcement of alcohol laws.
A lot of people don't think about
that as an aspect of the story.
But many black businesses were closed much
more aggressively than white businesses.
And in the.
Cracking down on moonshiners and bootleggers,
it was it was a lot against the
the black community as well.
So that's just one of those stories
that we delve into that was very
fascinating to find out about
what's going to say.
I mean I think that's one of those
things that people don't even realize
is tied to prohibition necessarily.
Of course we hear so many Black History
Month stories and obviously black
history is important all year long.
But then you go to this exhibit and you,
you start to tie the pieces together and
you learn so much about this area as well.
I know we were talking.
Not so much about separating from,
you know, state and and National History,
but also the ties as well because
it all kind of comes back together
exactly. Yeah, for us it was important to
kind of show the story on the macro level,
but really how each community is unique.
And yet at the same time,
we feel our story in Hampton is really
kind of the American story as well.
And it really shows that picture
of both the broad and the local.
So there's a lot to learn here.
And of course, we don't have
the time to cover it here today,
but let us know how long this
exhibit is gonna be where people
can go to get more information.
Well, please go to
ourwebsite@hamptonhistorymuseum.org.
And also, we have a wonderful
long run because this has been
such a popular exhibit already,
and it'll be running till next January.
OK OK, well, that's good, because I'm
sure people will need to come maybe,
you know, three or four times
just to take everything in.
So make sure you head to that website,
get more information.
So much to learn here, so much history,
so many fascinating stories happening
right here in our own backyard.
Lucy Willow, thank you so much.
Thank you for having us.
So we're right back.