A powerful new exhibit honors one of the first civil rights sit-in protests in America.
In 1939, when the Alexandria Library was only open to white people, Samuel Tucker and five other young Black men organized a sit-in at the library. As they expected, staff called police and had the men arrested for daring to read at a whites-only library.
“We need to know who these individuals were who took such a dramatic stance and risked going to jail,” Alexandria Library Director Rose Dawson said.
Eighty-five years later to the day, the library system unveiled an exhibit about the sit-in. It will travel to schools and libraries across Virginia.
The first stop? The elementary school named after Samuel Tucker.
“I think it was just really cool and that was really nice of them for the school to celebrate Samuel W. Tucker for all the stuff he’s done for us,” student Khloe Smalls said.
After the sit-in, it took another 23 years for the library to be fully integrated.
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Lifelong Alexandrian Jimmy Lewis remembers the discrimination he and other Black people faced.
“They opened a Black library, and back then – separate and unequal — we knew where we could and could not go,” he said.
Lewis is helping organize the celebrations for the sit-in’s 85th anniversary.
“We need to continue to tell the stories of our history,” he said. “Just so proud that we were a part of that generation.”
