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Robert Robinson Library (Historical Marker)

GPS Coordinates: 38.8120933, -77.0478876
Closest Address: 902 Wythe Street, Alexandria, VA 22314

Robert Robinson Library (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

Robert Robinson Library 1940
Alexandria Black Resource Center /
History Museum - 1989

Panel 1:
In the summer of 1939, Attorney Samuel W. Tucker organized six youths — William Evans, Otto Tucker, Edward Caddis, Morris Murray, Clarence Strange, and Robert Strange — for a “sit-in” at the segregated Alexandria Public Library, protesting the denial of access to the African American community. The “sit-in” is believed to have been the earliest in America. The arrest of five of these young men and their court case, pleaded by Mr. Tucker, resulted in a separate facility for African Americans being built here, at 698 North Alfred Street, the present location of the Alexandria Black History Resource Center.

The library is named after the Reverend Robert Robinson, a 19th century minister at the Roberts Chapel M.E. Church in the 600 block of S. Washington Street. With Mrs. Evelyn Roper Beam as its first librarian, the Robert Robinson Library opened its doors to the African American community on April 24, 1940.

Panel 2:
Alexandria Black History Resource Center
April 8, 1989

The Alexandria Black History Resource Center opened in 1983 and was located in the Robert Robinson Library. This addition to the Library was completed and rededicated in 1989. The Center, established through the cooperation of the City of Alexandria, the Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage, Inc. and the Alumni Association of Parker-Gray School, has as its mission: to preserve and interpret the history and culture of Alexandria’s African American community.

James P. Moran, Jr., Mayor
Patricia S. Ticer, Vice Mayor
Council Members
Lionel R. Hope • William Cleveland • Michael T. Jackson • Kerry J. Donley • Redella S. Pepper
Vola Lawson, City Manager

Erected 1983 by the City of Alexandria, the Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage, Inc. and the Alumni Association of Parker-Gray School.


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Here follows the text of a marker inside the building commemorating the 1939 sit-in at the Alexandria Public 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 this 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 our community.

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

[The Seal of the City of Alexandria, Virginia]

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Award-winning local historian and tour guide in Franconia and the greater Alexandria area of Virginia.

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ADDRESS

Nathaniel Lee

c/o Franconia Museum

6121 Franconia Road

Alexandria, VA 22310

franconiahistory@gmail.com

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