During her sabbatical from The Virginia-Pilot, Marjorie Mayfield Jackson spent time in her backyard and admired Scott’s Creek as part of the Elizabeth River in Hampton Roads, VA. The environment weighed heavily on her mind, underscored by the Clean Water Action surveyors knocking on her door and the waters in front of her.
So, in 1991, she visited the newsroom and quit. She said she was going to clean the river, and her managing editor was in disbelief.
“People just didn’t think there was a lot of hope for the river,” Jackson said.