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

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