In 1960 Norfolk won the National Municipal League's All-American City Award. Norfolk was praised for the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority's (NRHA) projects that replaced slums with low-rent housing, wider streets, boulevards, and controlled business and industrial development. Norfolk was also praised for the planning and building of a second Elizabeth River, Hampton Roads Bridge, and Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnels. Acceptance of the award, however, was marred by protests from the black community that no African American was invited to the ceremony and from the local Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) chapter which argued that "Discrimination and Segregation are not All-American." Two blacks were quickly invited but protestors called for boycott of the proceedings.

The post-World War II years did not bring immediate change to the status and rights of African Americans in the South Hampton Roads area. By 1960 only 23% of the eligible black voters were registered. This was primarily because of discrimination in voter registration, initiated since the 1902 Virginia Constitution. The 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, abolished the poll tax, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act expanded that number, but the lingering effects of voting restrictions resulted in widespread inequities.

In the 1960s the civil rights movement began a massive application of nonviolent protest tactics which were led by students utilizing the sit-in method perfected by CORE members. This student movement came to be known as SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). SNCC became a leading mover in the struggle for social reform, which used the sit-in as a successful method in desegregating many southern public lunch counters in 1961. Hundreds were arrested, most of them black students. African Americans in Hampton Roads arranged sit-ins at Norfolk's Woolworths, Portsmouth's Mid-City Roses, and numerous other stores. In some cases, the protests were peaceful marches; in other cases they resulted in violent clashes between black and white students. These protests continued until policy changes were made.
The demands of the civil rights movement, however, was not just for equality in education or public accommodations. Just as importantly, it was in the area of jobs, politics, and housing. Marches and demonstrations became the "protest method of choice" by African Americans challenging segregation and discrimination.

A concurrent issue that was just as volatile was school desegregation. Virginia had gone through a tumultuous period beginning on June 7, 1958 when the U.S. District Judge, Walter E. Hoffman, directed Norfolk's school board to assign 151 African American applicants to white schools for the coming year. Norfolk tried to oppose and then delay the order, but on August 29, 17 black applicants were admitted. Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., the man who championed school segregation as the attorney general and then in his 1957 gubernatorial race, closed Norfolk's six white high schools on September 8 rather than see them integrated. Yet, while Norfolk's 10,000 white students were out of school, the black students' schools remained open because no white student applied for admission. The Reverend John Henderson filed a lawsuit on behalf of these seventeen students in October. Eventually, Norfolk's city council attempted to pressure the black community to withdraw the lawsuit by withdrawing funding for the city's black schools. Ironically, Governor Almond intervened calling the move "vicious and retalitory." On January 19, 1959 the issue became moot when the Federal District Court and the Virginia Supreme Court declared Virginia's massive resistance policy unconstitutional. On February 2, 1959, seventeen black students entered the previously all-white schools, facing prejudice and discrimination but paving the way for city-wide integration by the 1970s.

This crisis brought a return to the coalition of black and white citizens, business persons and politicians which existed during the war years of the 1940s. The coalition was concretized with perhaps the most momentous event of the struggle against discrimination and racism: the election of Attorney Joseph A. Jordan, Jr. to Norfolk's City Council. His election made Jordan the first African American in the 20th century to win a seat on the council. He eventually became vice mayor and was, by 1977, appointed as judge on Norfolk's General District Court. Dr. William P. Robinson, a Norfolk State professor, was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1969 also becoming the first African American to win that seat in the 20th century. The first African American to achieve the distinction of being the first in Portsmouth was Dr. James E. Holley, III in 1968. Holley would go on to become Portsmouth's first African American mayor. These elections, as well as the appointments of prominent African Americans to the school board, the city planning commission, heralded the beginnings of changes for African Americans in Norfolk. It did not, however, signal an end to the struggle. That would be for the future.

In 1986 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals approved an end to school busing for all Norfolk elementary schools in the case of Riddick v. School Board of the City of Norfolk, VA. The decision resulted in the creation of all-Black elementary schools. The Court agreed with the Norfolk school board that racially separate schools could still comply with the Fourteenth Amendmentl. According to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the neighborhood school program was legal because its intent was not to discriminate; rather, it was a benign consequence of legitimate educational goals which included an attempt to stem White flight from Norfolk, to improve parental involvement in school, and improve Black standardized scores and academic success. Although Norfolk's School Board promised to provide greater funding for these re-segregated Black schools, little has been forthcoming.