Alexandria Library Sit-in
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Alexandria Library Sit-in
The Alexandria Library sit-in was one of the first staged sit-in actions in the United States, pioneering the use of nonviolent direct action to demand equal rights for African Americans. On August 21, 1939, five Black men sat down inside the Alexandria Public Library and quietly read books, a transgression of the library's "whites only" policy. Their actions were coordinated by Alexandria attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker, who planned the action to create a test case challenging the library's racial segregation policy. The men were escorted out of the library by police and charged with disorderly conduct. A ruling was not filed in their court case; in October 2019, all charges against the men were dismissed. The Alexandria sit-in is one of the earliest precursors in the U.S. of the strategies used during the civil rights movement. Background and planning The Alexandria Library was built on Queen Street in 1937 with money donated by the family of Kate Waller Barrett. Although fundi ...
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Alexandria Library (Virginia)
Alexandria Library is the public library in Alexandria, Virginia in the United States. History In 1794, Alexandria Library opened as a private lending library, calling itself the Alexandria Library Company. In 1937, Dr. Robert South Barrett donated funds to build a public library in memory of his mother, physician Kate Waller Barrett, Dr. Kate Waller Barrett (1857-1925). The Society of Friends granted a 99-year lease for use of its former Quaker Burial Ground (then used as a playground). An informal agreement provided that the interments would not be disturbed, although the few gravestones were transferred to the Woodlawn Quaker Meetinghouse and a granite marker acknowledges the former use. Thus, the new library building was built without a basement, but rather on a concrete slab foundation (as were subsequent additions). The Library Company cooperated in this effort, contracting with the Alexandria City Council to turn over its collections to City of Alexandria as the City a ...
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Massive Resistance
Massive resistance was a strategy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia and his brother-in-law James M. Thomson, who represented Alexandria in the Virginia General Assembly, to get the state's white politicians to pass laws and policies to prevent public school desegregation, particularly after ''Brown v. Board of Education''. Many schools, and even an entire school system, were shut down in 1958 and 1959 in attempts to block integration, before both the Virginia Supreme Court and a special three-judge panel of Federal District judges from the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting at Norfolk, declared those policies unconstitutional. Although most of the laws created to implement massive resistance were overturned by state and federal courts within a year, some aspects of the campaign against integrated public schools continued in Virginia for many more years. Byrd Organization and opposition to racial integration After Reconstruction ended in 1877 and the loc ...
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Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination in the United States, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the United States, disenfranchisement throughout the United States. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans. After the American Civil War and the subsequent Abolitionism in the United States, abolition of slavery in the 1860s, the Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship ...
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1939 Protests
This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Third Reich *** Jews are forbidden to work with Germans. *** The Youth Protection Act was passed on April 30, 1938 and the Working Hours Regulations came into effect. *** The Jews name change decree has gone into effect. ** The rest of the world *** In Spain, it becomes a duty of all young women under 25 to complete compulsory work service for one year. *** First edition of the Vienna New Year's Concert. *** The company of technology and manufacturing scientific instruments Hewlett-Packard, was founded in a garage in Palo Alto, California, by William (Bill) Hewlett and David Packard. This garage is now considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley. *** Sydney, in Australia, records temperature of 45 ˚C, the highest record for the city. *** Philipp Etter took over as Swi ...
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1939 In Virginia
This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Third Reich *** Jews are forbidden to work with Germans. *** The Youth Protection Act was passed on April 30, 1938 and the Working Hours Regulations came into effect. *** The Jews name change decree has gone into effect. ** The rest of the world *** In Spain, it becomes a duty of all young women under 25 to complete compulsory work service for one year. *** First edition of the Vienna New Year's Concert. *** The company of technology and manufacturing scientific instruments Hewlett-Packard, was founded in a garage in Palo Alto, California, by William (Bill) Hewlett and David Packard. This garage is now considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley. *** Sydney, in Australia, records temperature of 45 ˚C, the highest record for the city. *** Philipp Etter took over as Swi ...
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1939 In The United States
Events from the year 1939 in the United States. Incumbents Federal Government * President: Franklin D. Roosevelt ( D-New York) * Vice President: John Nance Garner ( D-Texas) * Chief Justice: Charles Evans Hughes (New York) * Speaker of the House of Representatives: William B. Bankhead ( D-Alabama) * Senate Majority Leader: Alben W. Barkley ( D-Kentucky) * Congress: 75th (until January 3), 76th (starting January 3) Events January * January 1 **The Hewlett-Packard Company is founded in Palo Alto, California. **Texas A&M University wins its only football national championship. * January 5 – Pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart is officially declared dead after her 1937 disappearance. February * February 6 – Raymond Chandler's hardboiled California private detective Philip Marlowe is introduced in his first full-length work of crime fiction, ''The Big Sleep'', published by Alfred A. Knopf. * February 15 – John Ford's Western film ''Stagecoach'' starring John Wayne pre ...
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C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States federal government, as well as other public affairs programming. The C-SPAN network includes the television channels C-SPAN (focusing on the U.S. House of Representatives), C-SPAN2 (focusing on the U.S. Senate), and C-SPAN3 (airing other government hearings and related programming), the radio station WCSP-FM, and a group of websites which provide streaming media and archives of C-SPAN programs. C-SPAN's television channels are available to approximately 100 million cable and satellite households within the United States, while WCSP-FM is broadcast on FM radio in Washington, D.C., and is available throughout the U.S. on SiriusXM, via Internet streaming, and globally through apps for iOS and Android devices. The network televises U.S. poli ...
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WAMU
WAMU (88.5 FM) is a public news/talk station that services the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by American University, and its studios are located near the campus in northwest Washington. WAMU has been the primary National Public Radio member station for Washington since 2007. History WAMU began as an AM carrier-current student radio station, signing on July 28, 1951 on , before shifting to in March 1952 and in November 1952. Although carrier-current stations are not granted a license or call sign by the FCC, it used "WAMU" as a familiar form of identification. The station aired a wide range of student-produced programming including music, news, sports, radio dramas, and debates. The station was heralded as a rebirth of the university's prior radio station, WAMC, which operated on for about two years starting on January 15, 1947, broadcasting with a 50-watt transmitter as part of a plan to offer a full range of radio and television courses at American U ...
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Sit-in Movement
The sit-in movement, sit-in campaign or student sit-in movement, were a wave of sit-ins that followed the Greensboro sit-ins on February 1, 1960 in North Carolina. The sit-in movement employed the tactic of nonviolent direct action and was a pivotal event during the Civil Rights Movement. African-American college students attending historically Black colleges and universities in the United States powered the sit-in movement across the country. Many students across the country followed by example, as sit-ins provided a powerful tool for students to use to attract attention. The students of Baltimore made use of this in 1960 where many used the efforts to desegregate department store restaurants, which proved to be successful lasting about three weeks. This was one small role Baltimore played in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The city facilitated social movements across the country as it saw bus and taxi companies hiring African-Americans in 1951–1952. Students at Bal ...
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Alexandria Black History Museum
The Alexandria Black History Museum, located at 902 Wythe St., Alexandria, Virginia, is operated by the City of Alexandria. The building was formerly the Robert Robinson Library, originally constructed in 1940 as the first "separate but equal" library for African Americans in the segregated city. History In 1794, Alexandria Library opened as a private lending library, calling itself the Alexandria Library Company. In 1937, Dr. Robert South Barrett donated funds to build Alexandria's Public Library. The Library Company cooperated in this effort, contracting with the Alexandria City Council to turn over its collections to City of Alexandria as the City agreed to include the public library's operating expenses in its budget. Since the library's budget was collected from the taxes paid by every American Citizen regardless their race, the lawyer Samuel Wilbert Tucker organized in 1939 a pacific sit-in at the new and "whites only" Alexandria, Virginia public library (Kate Waller B ...
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NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey and Ida B. Wells. Leaders of the organization included Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins. Its mission in the 21st century is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination". National NAACP initiatives include political lobbying, publicity efforts and litigation strategies developed by its legal team. The group enlarged its mission in the late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct, the status of black foreign refugees and questions of economic development. Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term ''colored people,'' referring to those with ...
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Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown Washington, D.C. In 2020, the population was 159,467. The city's estimated population has grown by 1% annually since 2010 on average. Like the rest of Northern Virginia and Central Maryland, modern Alexandria has been influenced by its proximity to the U.S. capital. It is largely populated by professionals working in the United States federal civil service, federal civil service, in the U.S. Military, U.S. military, or for one of the many private companies which contract to Government contractor, provide services to the federal government. One of Alexandria's largest employers is the United States Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense. Another is the Institute for Defense Analyses. In 2005, the U ...
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