Alexandria Library Association
founded 1937
The private nonprofit operating Alexandria’s first free public library, which opened on Queen Street in 1937. The association’s segregation policy excluding Black patrons was the object of the August 21, 1939 sit-in led by attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker.
The Alexandria Library Association was chartered in 1937 as the operating body of the newly built Barrett Branch at 717 Queen Street, Alexandria’s first free public library. The association restricted library cards to white patrons only [1] Alexandria Library Special Collections Manuscript .
On August 21, 1939, five young Black men — Otto L. Tucker, Edward Gaddis, Morris Murray, William Evans, and Clarence Strange — entered the Queen Street library and, after being refused library cards, sat quietly reading books until they were arrested. The demonstration had been organized by attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker, whose law office was on Queen Street a short walk from the library [2] Alexandria Gazette, Aug. 22, 1939 Newspaper . The sit-in is one of the earliest documented civil-rights direct actions in the United States. The city’s response was to build a separate, unequal Robert H. Robinson Library for Black patrons, which opened in 1940; the Barrett Branch remained segregated until 1962.
Associated places
717 Queen Street — Alexandria Library / Barrett Branch
1937The Alexandria Library Association has operated the Queen Street library since it opened in 1937.
Sources
- 1.
Alexandria Library, Local History/Special Collections, Barrett Branch, Alexandria, Virginia.
Manuscript
- 2.
'Young Negroes Stage Sit-Down at Local Library,' Alexandria Gazette, August 22, 1939.
Newspaper
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