An Effort to Learn From and Amplify a Little-Known but Powerful Demonstration for Civil Rights in Alexandria, VA
In 1939, five young Black men peacefully demonstrated their right to read in the Alexandria public library, which at the time was declared to be for White citizens only. The men entered the library, requested library cards, and were denied. Instead of leaving, they chose books from the shelves and sat down to read, only to be arrested and escorted out by police.
Taking place well before the lunch counter sit-ins and bus boycotts of the 1950s and ‘60s, this event and the stories behind it illuminate the history of inequities still plaguing our education system and offer inspiring examples of how to overcome them. Throughout 2023 and 2024, 鶹ý will be conducting research, recording video interviews, and developing events, digital exhibits, and teaching materials about this historic protest and what it can teach us today about access to books, educational materials, libraries, and schools.
Our advisors and partners include leaders at the Alexandria Library, the Alexandria Black History Museum in the Office of Historic Alexandria, 鶹ýn History, and the Alexandria City Public Schools, as well as authors, historians, and national digital media experts. This project has been supported with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Virginia Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation.
鶹ý recaps a webinar that explored why digital primary sources are important and how they can be used to enhance student learning about history, particularly the history of the civil rights movement.
A webinar on April 22, 2025 with experts from the Library of Congress, Maryland Public Television, Alexandria Library, 鶹ýn History, and educators in the Alexandria City Public Schools and D.C. Public Schools. Features a tour of newly digitized source material available for all via the Alexandria Library’s digital special collections.
This digitization work in Alexandria is part of 鶹ý’s 1939 Library Sit-In Project. In the late summer of 2023 we received a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to digitize thousands of documents in the library’s special collections, with more than two-thirds of funds going to the Alexandria Library to purchase equipment, hire interns, and enable staff to dedicate time to the project.
This 7-minute video describes the 1939 sit-in and what happened a year later in Alexandria, VA., spotlighting scholars and leaders in the City of Alexandria who have lifted up and commemorated the event. The video briefly explores why this story resonates today as students and families still seek equal access to knowledge and education.
Join us at SXSW EDU to talk about this little-known demonstration for the right to read 85 years ago. Learn about the courageous youth who demanded access, setting a standard for later civil rights actions. Be inspired by today’s museum and library leaders working to set things right. Reflect on links to today’s book bans and their chilling effects. Featuring interactive activities to help you apply lessons in your hometown. Panelists include Audrey Davis, director of African American History for the Office of Historic Alexandria; Rose Dawson, executive director of the Alexandria Library; and Lisa Guernsey, senior editor in the education policy program and leader of the library sit-in project at 鶹ý, plus Jazmyne Owens, preK-12 policy advisor in education policy at 鶹ý, as moderator.
Announcing new digital projects, including the digitization of thousands of primary source documents and the design of an online exhibit with educational resources.
Ten in-depth interviews with researchers and community members that add to the historical record and deepen today’s discussions of exclusion and inclusion in public libraries and schools.
In this opinion piece for The 74, Lisa Guernsey and Jazmyne Owens argue that while the details are different between blocking library access in 1939 and restricting books today, the impetus is similar: Today we are seeing a contemporary version of denying certain groups of people access to knowledge and ideas, especially groups who have been marginalized and ostracized, as well as the vast majority of Americans who cannot afford to purchase all the books they may need or want and therefore rely on public and school libraries.
鶹ý, a nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank, has been awarded a two-year $250,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to develop an immersive digital exhibit on the 1939 Library Sit-In in Alexandria, Virginia. This civil-rights demonstration, unknown to most Americans, is the United States’ first recorded sit-in demanding desegregated access to a public library. The event, which led to the arrests of five young Black men for reading in a whites-only library, predates the protests of what is widely recognized as the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and ‘60s. It offers a window into actions that laid the foundation for human rights advances to come.
Join us for a conversation with librarians, teachers, museum curators, and scholars of public history who are using new approaches to amplify this American story of the Alexandria Library Sit-In and recognize the persistent drive for equal access to education that continues to this day.
The individuals below sit on the advisory board for the Library Sit-In project.
Brian Daugherity is a professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research focuses on the implementation of the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision in Virginia. His first book, edited with Dr. Charles Bolton, With All Deliberate Speed: Implementing Brown v. Board of Education, was published by the University of Arkansas Press in 2008. His second book, Keep On Keeping On: The NAACP and the Implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in Virginia, was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2016. Professor Daugherity's third book, edited with Brian Grogan, A Little Child Shall Lead Them: A Documentary Account of the Struggle for School Desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia, was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2019.
Professor Daugherity has received grants to fund his research and projects from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Library of Congress, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities [now Virginia Humanities], Virginia Historical Society, Duke University, and the College of William & Mary, among others. He is currently co-writing a book and co-producing a documentary film, with Jody L. Allen, on the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Charles C. Green v. New Kent County, Virginia.
Audrey P. Davis is the director of the African American History Division of the Office of Historic Alexandria (OHA). Throughout her tenure with the City of Alexandria, Davis has been recognized for her exemplary service and commitment to her profession. In 2004, she was appointed by Virginia Governor Mark R. Warner to the Board of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy, and she was reappointed to that Board in 2007 by Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine, serving until her term ended in 2010. In 2008, she received a special merit award, from former Alexandria City Manager James Hartmann, for her contribution to the Freedmen’s Cemetery Memorial Design Competition Committee. In 2009, she was honored with the Salute to Women Awards Vola Lawson Award by the Alexandria Commission on Women as that year’s City of Alexandria employee who had made the greatest impact to improve the role of women and girls in the City. In 2012 she was an essential part of the Office of Historic Alexandria team that achieved accreditation of all departmental facilities, including the Alexandria Black History Museum for the first time, as a “museum system” by the American Alliance of Museums. That designation, achieved by only eight municipal agencies nationwide, confirms the achievement of the highest standards and best practices recognized in the museum field.
Davis was one of five authors of the History Press book, African Americans of Alexandria, Virginia: Beacons of Light in the 20th Century, which chronicles the life of 63 African American men and women whose actions made a difference in the historic fabric of Alexandria, Virginia during the years 1920 through 1965. The 2013 book, whose authors also include Char McCargo Bah, Christa Watters, Gwen Brown-Henderson, and James Henson, was the fourth biggest seller for History Press in 2013 and will be going into its third printing.
Davis has also served as president of the Alexandria Historical Society, is a founding and current member of the Advisory Council of Virginia Africana: The Network of Museum, History and Preservation Professionals, a member of the American Alliance of Museums, a past president of the Virginia Association of Museums, and a member of the Association of African American Museums.
Rose Timmons Dawson has held the position of Director of the Alexandria Library in Alexandria, Virginia, for 14 years after serving as the deputy director for 3 years. Prior to working for the Alexandria Library, Ms. Dawson held a number of progressively responsible positions for the District of Columbia Public Library from Change Agent for Internal Affairs to the Coordinator for Community Youth Services.
While Rose holds undergraduate and masters degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she has completed the Executive Leadership Institute (ELI) with the Urban Libraries Council and George Washington University’s Center for Excellence in Municipal Management (CEMM) from which she received a certification in public management.
She is a life member of the American Library Association (ALA) and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA). She is an active member of the Virginia Public Library Directors Association (VPLDA) and the Public Library Association (PLA). She is the 2019 recipient of the UNC-CH School of Information and Library Science Distinguished Alumni Award and 2010 recipient of the BCALA Distinguished Service to the Library Profession Award.
She has written articles on the 1939 Library Sit-in and conducted several presentations on the need to celebrate and recognize all of one’s history. Under her leadership, the Alexandria Library received the 2020 American Library Association’s John Cotton Dana Award and the 2020 American Library Association’s Excellence in Library Programming Award for the work done on the 1939 Library Sit-in.
Annie Evans is the director of Education and Outreach for 鶹ýn History at the University of Richmond. Annie is a National Geographic Society Grosvenor Teacher Fellow, a NatGeo-certified educator and trainer, and co-coordinator of the Virginia Geographic Alliance. With over 30 years of classroom and educational leadership experience, she designs curricula and facilitates professional learning for K-16 teachers and museum educators, focusing on historical thinking skills, geoliteracy, instructional coaching, project-based learning, and performance assessments. She hopes 鶹ýn History will inspire the next generation of public historians, history educators, and civic leaders.
Michelle J. Millben is an education research fellow with the PreK-12 program and the CEO of Code Rising, a transformative STEM-focused workforce preparation program dedicated to empowering underserved students with equitable access to STEM education.
An accomplished attorney and leader, Michelle has served as a White House advisor to President Obama, an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, and counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. With over 16 years of experience, she has driven impactful civil rights, education, and technology policies across government and private sectors.
Andrew T. Mink (Andy) is the director of Rural Initiatives with the Smithsonian Institution. He provides leadership in shaping and growing the Rural Initiative in order to establish the programmatic and operational infrastructure necessary to execute pan-institutional collaborations that expand the reach of the Smithsonian’s resources, expertise, and programming.
He joins the Office of the Undersecretary of Education after seven successful years as the vice president of Education at the National Humanities Center (NHC). Recognized as the world’s only fully independent nonprofit research center for humanities scholars, the Center lacked a comprehensive education program. Under his leadership, the NHC served nearly four million K-12 and postsecondary educators in all 50 states and internationally each year through a variety of virtual and in-person programs and events.
Mink began his career in higher education in 2001 when he was hired as the director of Education and Outreach with the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia. As access to digital resources transformed education, he worked throughout the nation to provide professional development that integrated emerging educational technology into hands-on, inquiry-based instruction. He later served as the executive director of LEARN NC in the Peabody School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This nonprofit center provided educators with collaborative long distance learning and teaching opportunities with a focus on teacher leadership, inquiry-based instructional design, and place-based education models. This work capitalized on the emergence of Open Education Resources (OER) to address issues of equity and access in rural and underserved communities of the state.
After earning degrees in history from the University of Virginia and the University of South Carolina, he taught in a public middle school in central Virginia for ten years. Mink has been named National K-12 Educator of the Year by the National Society of Experiential Education and Outstanding Support for Geography Education by the National Council for Geography Education during his work as an educator. He is currently listed as a distinguished lecturer by the Organization of American Historians.
Finally, Mink is a dedicated service leader. He has served on numerous local, regional, and national boards of directors, including multiple terms on the National Council for the Social Studies, National Council for History Education, and North Carolina Outward Bound School. This background and wide-ranging set of professional experiences inform his deep commitment
to community-based education.
A native of rural eastern Virginia, he lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his partner, Monica, and two children.
Brenda Mitchell-Powell earned her PhD from Simmons University in Archives Management as an American Library Association (ALA) Spectrum Fellow in 2015. She received her M.S. in Library and Information Science, also from Simmons University, as an ALA Spectrum Scholar in 2008. She received a 2017 Library History Round Table Phyllis Dain Library History Dissertation Merit Award, as well as a Certificate of Appreciation for Outstanding Service from the Afro-American Studies Librarians Section of the Association of College and Research in 1993. In 2009, Mitchell-Powell was elected to Beta Phi Mu, the international library and information science honor society.
After her tenure as editor-in-chief of Small Press™ magazine, the international organ of the independent publishing community, she created, edited, and produced MultiCultural Review, an international education and library resource, for Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. under the auspices of Orange Ball Corporation, her editorial services company. MultiCultural Review was selected as one of “The Ten Best Magazines of 1991,” by Bill Katz for Library Journal.
Currently an independent scholar and researcher, Mitchell-Powell served as a contributor, writer, editor, reviewer, and consultant for several national and international publications, as well as for city, state, federal agencies, literary councils, publishers, cultural organizations, and professional associations. She served as organizer and co-chair of the review committee established to present the first annual book awards for the Black Caucus of the ALA, and she has been an invited participant in seminars for several colleges and universities.
Her essays on Black history and culture and her reviews of educational materials, literary titles, children’s books, and library resources have appeared in a variety of trade and professional publications. Her most recent publication credits include a book review of The Development of Southern Public Libraries and the African American Quest for Library Access, 1898‒1963,” by Dallas Hanbury; for Libraries: Culture, History, and Society 5, no. 2 (Fall 2021): 283‒87; her book Public in Name Only: The 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In Demonstration (Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2022), which won the 2023 Special Merit Award from the Alexandria Historical Society; and a book review of The Library: A Fragile History, by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen, for Libraries: Culture, History, and Society 7, no. 2 (Fall 2023): 216‒22.
Sarah Whelan is an educator with over 20 years of experience in teaching, curriculum development, and professional development. She currently serves as the K-12 social studies specialist in Alexandria City Public Schools, Virginia, where she previously taught middle and high school history.
She supports teachers and school leaders with providing a meaningful, inquiry-based education in history and social science for a richly diverse student population. Her areas of expertise include project-based learning, teaching with primary sources, and cultivating civic engagement.