By Leonard E. ColvinChief ReporterNew Journal and Guide On February 2, 1959, when Andrew Heidelberg walked into Norview High School, his life dramatically changed.Along with 16 other Black teens desegregating six all-white schools, they were met with non-stop angry slurs and threats from white students.This slice of history took place nearly five years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled racially separate public schools were illegal in Brown vs. The Board of Education. But Virginia was one of several southern states which imposed legal “Massive Resistance” policies and practices to avoid complying with it. In fact, the six all-white Norfolk schools targeted for desegregation by the federal court had been closed rather than to comply with the law.On February 2, 2023, the 64th anniversary of The Norfolk 17’s daring to enter the all-white schools, a new book is being released about Heidelberg’s life before and during those traumatic years. “Heidelberg of the Norfolk 17” was written by Robert D. Gaines and Andrew Heidelberg before Andrew’s death seven years ago. The 230-page book is being published by Hidden Shelf Publishing House.Gaines, whose father was in the Navy, arrived at Norview in November of 1959. Ironically, the year before he had been a white student at a junior high school in California with a student body that was 95 percent Black.“I had great friends and never encountered any racial problems,” Gaines said. “Coming to Norfolk was a cultural shock.”Gaines said he never participated in the harassment of his Black classmates at Norview, but what he witnessed was etched in his memory. In 2008, after retiring from Bucknell University and having written several novels, Gaines found Heidelberg, who after a career in banking, was a social activist living in Hampton.“I was a bit nervous when I knocked on his door,” said Gaines. “He answered and sort of gave me a scowl. ‘I don’t remember you in high school,’ he grumbled, followed by a grin.“‘That’s probably a good thing,’ he continued as he slapped my shoulder and warmly welcomed me into his home.”“I was there to write a book ... he wanted a movie,” said Gaines, who now lives in Idaho. “We would spend three years talking, writing, editing. Working with Andrew was always riveting, never easy … he carried deep scars from what he had endured.”Heidelberg's family were natives of Norfolk, and he spent his early life in a home with no indoor plumbing in the heart of the Black slums. Racial housing segregation was the norm at the time. But there were some well-known paradoxes to that reality. The family moved to a modest new rental housing developed for Blacks near Sewell Points Road, just blocks from the all-white Norview schools.This was the crux of the NAACP and Black communities to push Norfolk to comply with the Brown Decision. Heidelberg and the other students who desegregated the all-white schools lived within walking distance. They had to catch two buses to the all-Black elementary, junior, and senior high schools downtown.One evening in 1957, young Andrew ran home f