BOTETOURT COUNTY, Va. – Norvel Lee garnered national attention and rose to prominence after winning the light heavyweight gold medal for boxing in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, but the Botetourt native’s accomplishments extend far beyond the ring.
Lee was born in Eagle Rock in Botetourt County, on September 22, 1924, during a time of extreme racial tension in Virginia and the same year the “Racial Integrity Act” was passed by state lawmakers.
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The Racial Integrity Act prohibited interracial marriage and required every infant born in Virginia to have their racial identification added to their birth certificate. Infants would be identified as either “White” or “Colored,” regardless of racial identity. Walter Ashby Plecker, a physician and active eugenicist, championed the act.
Growing up in the Jim Crow South, Lee attended segregated schools before joining the Army Air Forces in 1943 during World War II.
Norvel was selected to complete the training program for Black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Despite earning his pilot wings, he was not assigned to a squadron due to a speech impediment. Lee ended up serving in the South Pacific during the war.
After the war, Lee attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he began his boxing career. In 1948, Lee was selected as an alternate for the United States Olympic Boxing Team for the games in London but did not compete.
On September 13, 1948, not even a month after the Summer Games in London had concluded, Lee found himself at the center of one of the biggest civil rights cases in Virginia history.
While back home, Lee boarded a train to visit family in Covington and sat in a section that was designated for whites only. Lee was asked to move by a conductor, and he refused. Lee did this two more times the next day, once on his return trip, where he was kicked off the train, and again when he tried to travel back to Howard University in D.C.
Lee was convicted and fined $5,000 for “Unlawfully failing to take a seat assigned to him.” This conviction would eventually be overturned by the Supreme Court of Virginia, a rarity for the time.
During this time, Lee continued to rise through the boxing ranks and was again chosen to be an alternate for the United States Olympic Boxing Team for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.
It would be at these Olympics where Lee would receive his crowning achievement in the boxing world, winning an Olympic gold. Lee became the first Black Virginian to ever achieve such a tremendous feat.
Lee eventually retired from boxing three years later in 1955. After boxing Lee continued a life of education, joining the Baltimore City Public School System in 1974. Lee also retired from the military as a lieutenant colonel in 1982.
Lee died in 1992, but 30 years later on February 24, 2022, the Virginia General Assembly unanimously designated a portion of Route 220 in Botetourt County as the Norvel LaFallette Ray Lee Memorial Highway in his honor.
Later that same year, a historical marker was unveiled along a portion of Route 220 close to Lee’s home, ensuring that the legacy of the “Boxer from Botetourt” continues to live on through the community and the state.