In 1999, Roy B. Martin Jr., former Norfolk mayor and one of the city’s greatest boosters in the post-World War II era, decided it was time to document his years of civic leadership, The Martin Years, in what he figured would be a small tribute piece relegated to an inconspicuous library shelf. He was wrong. Spearheaded by a determined and committed handful of Norfolk leaders, Martin’s recollections were destined to come to life on the pages of this book so that the memories and historic record as Roy Martin saw it would become as well read as they were documented in his many personal scrapbooks, newspaper clippings and, perhaps most important of all, his own words.
The Martin years reflect Norfolk in a state of transition unlike any other time in the city’s history and a young naval officer returning home from the war who was soon to find it rife for change and growth. In the telling of Roy Martin’s story, author Amy Waters Yarsinske has created an important and revealing work in the annals of Hampton Roads history.