Alexandria Black History Museum

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The Alexandria Black History Museum, located at 902 Wythe St., Alexandria, Virginia, is operated by the City of Alexandria. The building was formerly the Robert Robinson Library, originally constructed in 1940 as the first "separate but equal" library for African Americans in the segregated city.

Contents

History

In 1794, Alexandria Library opened as a private lending library, calling itself the Alexandria Library Company. In 1937, Dr. Robert South Barrett donated funds to build Alexandria's Public Library. The Library Company cooperated in this effort, contracting with the Alexandria City Council to turn over its collections to City of Alexandria as the City agreed to include the public library's operating expenses in its budget.

Since the library's budget was collected from the taxes paid by every American Citizen regardless their race, the lawyer Samuel Wilbert Tucker organized in 1939 a pacific sit-in at the new and "whites only" Alexandria, Virginia public library (Kate Waller Barret branch) that lead to their arrest by Virginia's police.

The 1939 event is commonly cited as the first non-violent protest by African Americans against racial segregation. The museum has changing exhibitions on local and national topics related to African Americans. [1]

Museum

The museum also operates the Alexandria African American Heritage Park, a 9-acre (3.6 ha) park at 500 Holland Lane, which contains a 1-acre (0.40 ha) nineteenth-century African-American cemetery that was buried under a city landfill in the 1960s. [2]

See also

Further reading

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Robert H. Robinson Library was one of the earliest libraries for Colored People in the United States, during the Jim Crow laws era. Robert Robinson Library was located at 902 Wythe St., Alexandria, Virginia, and was operated since 1940 by the City of Alexandria.

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The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund is a program formed in 2017 to aid stewards of Black cultural sites throughout the nation in preserving both physical landmarks, their material collections and associated narratives. It was organized under the auspices of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The initiative which awards grants to select applicants and advocates of Black history has been led by architectural historian Brent Leggs since 2019. It is the largest program in America to preserve places associated with Black history.

References

  1. City of Alexandria, VA (2017). "Past Exhibitions at the Alexandria Black History Museum" . Retrieved February 14, 2018.
  2. Anderson, Adrian A.; Westover, Allan (1992). "THE AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE PARK, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA" (PDF). Tellus Consultants. Retrieved February 14, 2018.

Coordinates: 38°48′43″N77°02′53″W / 38.81206°N 77.04803°W / 38.81206; -77.04803