Alexandria Library Sit-In (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

Alexandria Library Sit-In
On 21 August 1939, five young African American men applied for library cards at the new Alexandria Library to protest its whites-only policy. After being denied, William Evans, Edward Gaddis, Morris Murray, Clarence Strange, and Otto L. Tucker each selected a book from the shelves, sat down, and read quietly. The men were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct despite their polite demeanor. Local attorney Samuel W. Tucker, who helped plan the protest, represented them in court. The judge never issued a ruling. In 1940, Alexandria opened the Robert Robinson Library for African Americans. Desegregation of the library system began by 1959.

Erected 2008 by Department of Historic Resources. (Marker Number E-88.)

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Alexandria Library - Kate Waller Barrett Branch is located at 717 Queen Street. It was the site of the 1939 library sit-in described on the marker which is actually located around the corner on North Washington Street.


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Also see . . . Alexandria library sit-in arrest charges are dismissed... by Patricia Sullivan, The Washington Post, Oct. 21, 2019.

Circuit Court Chief Judge Lisa Bondareff Kemler... signed an order Friday stating that William Evans, Edward Gaddis, Morris Murray, Clarence Strange and Otto Tucker were “lawfully exercising their constitutional rights to free assembly, speech and to petition the government to alter the established policy of sanctioned segregation at the time of their arrest” and that “sitting peacefully in a library reading books... was not in any fashion disorderly or likely to cause acts of violence.”


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Plaque in the Kate Waller Barrett Branch of the Alexandria Library
Library the Scene of Human Rights Action

A library is the collective memory of all humanity. Its contents are the common heritage of us all.

On August 21, 1939, five citizens of the city walked into this building and sat at one of its reading tables. Though surrounded by the wisdom of the ages, they were denied access to the thoughts on the shelves around them for a reason as implausible as the color of their skin. For merely being in the room, they were arrested.

The act of these five men in defying a discriminatory regulation was one of the earliest examples of a tactic successfully employed by a later generation to undermine racial segregation across the nation. This plaque is placed here so that the names of these five courageous citizens — William Evans, Otto Tucker, Edward Gaddis, Morris Murray and Clarence "Buck” Strange — will forever remain a part of the collective memory of out community.

In commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of the Human Rights Ordinance of the City of Alexandria, March 25, 2000.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Clio Foundation website about the library sit-in as written by Daniel Newcomer and Kalen Martin-Gross:

Introduction:
In August 1939, attorney Samuel W. Tucker orchestrated what appears to be the earliest organized civil rights sit-in at this library. At that time, Alexandria was a city of 33,000 and had only one public library. Although local Black residents vote and paid their taxes (some of which went to financing the library after it had been built), they were denied entry to the white-only library. Attorney Samuel W. Tucker was 26 in the summer of 1939, and to protest the library's white-only policy, he prepared a select group of men for an act of civil disobedience. On Friday, August 21, 1939, Tucker's group entered the public library despite the library's policy of only serving white patrons. They were denied service and told to leave, but they sat down and read until the police arrived and arrested the men for trespassing. The situation was virtually ignored by most newspapers at the time, and Samuel Tucker continued fighting against segregation and intolerance thereafter, becoming a prominent voice in the Civil Rights era. He later served as the lead lawyer for the NAACP and argued several cases before the the Supreme Court.

Backstory and Context:
In the 1930s, segregation reigned in Alexandria and throughout the South and beyond. In addition to schools, restaurants, and other places of public accommodation, many libraries barred Black residents from entering the building-effectively barring millions from access to books in an era when most Americans depended on libraries for reading material. Samuel Wilbert Tucker, an Alexandria native, organized a movement to challenge this exclusion. As Alexandria's only high school was an all-white school, Tucker had attended and graduated from a high school in Washington D.C. At the age of 20, he graduated from Howard University and passed Virginia's bar exam.

In March 1939, Tucker was not allowed entry to the Alexandria Library (another white-only establishment). Tucker took the case to court and discovered that the city's solution was to built an all-Black library, which Tucker knew from experience would not offer the same access to services and information. In response to this injustice, Tucker worked with others in Alexandria's Black community and organized a group of young men who were willing to challenge the city's policy of segregation, even if it meant that they would be arrested.

On the day of the protest, August 21, 1939, only five men arrived: Otto Tucker, 22; William “Buddy” Evans, 19; Edward Gaddis, 21; Morris L. Murray, 22; and Clarence “Buck” Strange, 21. One by one, these men entered the library and asked to register for a library card. When refused, the protester picked up a book, took a seat, and read quietly. Five men at five different tables read their books without causing a stir. Each of the men had prepared for the event. Knowing that they might be photographed and arrested, each wore their best clothing and resolved to act politely in the face of insults.

The library staff called the police (Tucker, as planned, was waiting for the police's arrival) and the police soon arrived and arrested the five men for disorderly conduct (as the men's politeness had an impact and the police had difficulties finding grounds for a conviction). Samuel Tucker had a photographer waiting outside to take a photo, and he quickly arranged for the men's release from custody.

The charges were never dismissed, nor were they ever brought back to court. The case essentially disappeared from the record without ever reaching a formal resolution. The story was largely ignored outside of Black communities. The Alexandria Library Board, in response, promised to build the Blacks-only Robert H. Robinson Library and hire an African American librarian. Tucker wrote a passionate letter in response. "I refuse and will always refuse to accept a card to be used at the library to be constructed and operated at Alfred and Wythe Streets," he wrote, "in lieu of [a] card to be used at the existing library on Queen Street for which I have made application."

Tucker went on to become a leading civil rights attorney on behalf of the NAACP, winning many cases against segregated schools during the 1960s, including the infamous case in Prince Edward County where school officials closed all public schools in order to avoid the court's order to desegregate.