Alexandria Library Sit-In Documents To Be Preserved With Grant

ALEXANDRIA, VA — Before the 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina sit-in and the following sit-in movement, there was another civil rights sit-in in Alexandria.

This year marks the85th anniversary of the 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In. On Aug. 21, 1939, several African Americans held a sit-in protest at what's now Barrett Branch Library when one was denied a library card at the whites-only library.

On Tuesday, Alexandria Library and nonprofit New America announced they are receiving a $150,000 grant to preserve and tell the 1939 sit-in story. The grant comes from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

"This partnership between New America and the Alexandria Library opens the doors of access and tells the story to a new generation, and we are excited to see where it leads," said Rose Dawson, executive director of the Alexandria Library.

The grant comes as the Alexandria Library marked the 85th anniversary of the civil rights sit-in. According to the library, library staff had refused to give a library card to a young African American. When denied, the young person took a book and started to read. Another young African American did the same thing, and it continued until William Evans, Otto L. Tucker, Edward Gaddis, Morris Murray and Clarence Strange held a sit-in at five tables. Tucker was the brother of Samuel Wilbert Tucker, a lawyer who worked in key civil rights cases and has an Alexandria school named after him.

Library staff called the police, who arrested the protesters for "disorderly conduct," according to the library. A protester's brother notified Samuel Tucker, who arranged for a photographer to capture the protest and get the protesters released. When Tucker tried to challenge the city to push for equal access, the city stalled the process with negotiations. In 1940, community leaders without Tucker agreed to a "separate but equal" library, leading to the construction of Robert H. Robinson Library. The African American library was used until desegregation began in the early 1960s.

The grant is expected to go toward digitizing 4,370 pages from special collections of letters, library board minutes, city government documents, and biographical materials about the people involved in the 1939 sit-in. The digitized materials will be made available through 4,400 image files on the Alexandria Library website and database.

Along with the project, New America is launching The 1939 Library Sit-in Project, a multi-year effort to highlight the events and legacy of the sit-in.

"This story of the 1939 library sit-in deserves to be better known, and it is powerful to see the original typed letters requesting library cards, the library board meeting minutes from the 1930s, and many other primary sources that tell this story," said Lisa Guernsey, a senior editor in New America's education policy program. "We at New America are proud to be helping digitize and open access to these resources for educators, students, and the public, making them available anytime and anywhere."