Curating and Connecting the Stories Behind the Library Sit-In of 1939

For more than 30 years, Audrey Davis has been the linchpin of African American history in the city of Alexandria, curating and developing scores of city exhibits, hosting forums and special events, and answering countless questions from researchers inside and outside the community about key events in this historic city from before the Civil War and up through the city’s Jim Crow era and continued struggles for civil rights. She is now the director of the African American History division for the Office of Historic Alexandria, and her purview includes the Alexandria Black History Museum, which has featured multiple exhibits on the sit-in.

We talked with Davis on July 7, 2023 in the museum’s exhibit space, which is also the site of the segregated library the city constructed in 1940, a move largely seen as a way for government leaders in Alexandria at the time to avoid having to integrate the larger public library. The conversation below, on video and as a transcript, is an excerpt of a longer interview and has been edited for clarity.

Let’s start with your background. What brought you to work at the Alexandria Black History Museum?

I am a native Washingtonian and I studied at the University of Virginia for undergrad and a master's in art history. And it's interesting because my art history degree was not in African American art history, which was not actually offered at the time when I was at UVA. But I had grown up in a family very interested in history. Both of my parents were teachers. My grandfather was a professor of African American literature at Howard University. So I certainly had been exposed to a lot of great books, great thinkers, people who would always visit my grandfather, incredible writers and authors. So I always had a love for African American history.

And then after graduate school, when I moved back in '91 to the DC area, I took contract work jobs with the Smithsonian Institution and then also at Mount Vernon. And while at Mount Vernon serving as a tour guide, I met Gladys Tancil, who was the first African American guide at Mount Vernon. And then she was also on the board—a member of the Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage, which was the friends group for the Alexandria Black History Resource Center, as we were known then. And she recommended me when that job came open for a part-time curator. And that's how I was hired.

What do you remember about the library sit-in and its story when you came on board? Who knew about it?

When I arrived in ‘93, it was really one of the first stories I heard, because, of course, you can't help but see, as you're walking down Alfred Street—if you're at the corner of Wythe and North Alfred Street—you see the stone that Eugene Thompson [then-director of the Black History Resource Center] had erected there acknowledging the Robert Robinson Library and it being built in 1940.

And I would say pretty much everyone, every African American of a certain age that I met, was certainly aware of the sit-in and the legacy of the sit-in. There was a small exhibit here with the sit-in picture that always hung in the gallery. And then they also started having programs. I know the earliest documented one that I can find a program for…was a tribute to Samuel Wilbert Tucker [the organizer of the sit-in] that was held in 1991 at the Resource Center. So I know that that was one of the first formal programs held there.

I was fascinated by the story and always wanting to learn more.

But shortly after I came, we had a wonderful offer from the National Park Service to have a scholar, Caridad de la Vega, work on two lesson plans for us. One was on Freedom House [a museum in a building that, during the years of the slave trade, was used to imprison enslaved people] and the other was on the 1939 sit-in. So we were very, very lucky to have that. And then over the years, we forged a great friendship with Steven Ackerman, the late Steven Ackerman, who wrote an incredible article about Samuel Wilbert Tucker for The Washington Post magazine that sort of put him locally more on the radar. But it was always really celebrated here within the community and always acknowledged as really one of our earliest actions by African Americans for civil rights.

What did the sit-in story mean to you when you first learned about it?

I was fascinated by the story and always wanting to learn more. And one of the people I had the pleasure of knowing was the late Elsie Tucker Thomas, who was Samuel Wilbert Tucker's sister. And she was alive at the time and was in and out of the museum, was the local historian, was very instrumental in us opening our Watson Reading Room in 1995. So we were always hearing from her. And she was very instrumental in donating items that she had from her brother and then encouraging his wife, Julia Tucker, to donate some artifacts to us, and which she did, before Julia Tucker passed away in, I believe it was, 2000. So knowing those two—I knew Julia Tucker just very, very briefly, just to say hello, but she would come up on occasion, especially when the library dedicated a plaque in 2000 for the 25th anniversary of the [City of Alexandria’s] human rights ordinance, and they dedicated a plaque to the sit-in participants. Julia Tucker was there, as was Oliver Hill [a lawyer famous for school desegregation cases], and that was shortly before both of their deaths.

Yet as a native Washingtonian you didn’t hear about this earlier in your life, in school?

Unfortunately, I never learned about it in school, which is, especially to me, surprising, considering that it was a local story. But to be honest, I didn't learn a lot about African-American history during the years I was going to school. That was a pretty big deal if you had a class and a teacher who celebrated Black History Month. And unfortunately, the schools I went to really didn't focus that much on African-American history. So it really was a story I learned as an adult. And by doing a deeper dive when I was hired here.

Tell us more about your journey to collect information and interpret the history of the sit-in.

I think for me, it was looking at all of the information that we had on the sit-in, looking at newspaper articles from the period, looking at the material that Elsie Tucker Thomas donated and that Julia Tucker also donated. So looking at those materials. And then it just came through speaking with members of the community in different programs. I mean, we had a program on African-American education and civil rights in 1998. That was a big program, more of like a forum, that we did. And then for the 60th anniversary, we looked at the sit-in again. And we did this event looking at civil rights and desegregation and all of the issues in Alexandria in honor of the 60th anniversary of the sit-in.

And then it was in 2006, when we opened an exhibit here called Securing the Blessings of Liberty. And when we opened that exhibit, we redid the panels in the lobby and we did a dedicated panel to the sit-in because we were thinking about, “what are the things we want visitors to know when they walk in the door?” We wanted them to know a brief history of the museum, how it got started. But the sit-in was the other core story, and the Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage. So those were three things we wanted people to learn about coming into the museum before they even looked at the galleries.

In 2006, when we opened an exhibit here called Securing the Blessings of Liberty, we redid the panels in the lobby and we did a dedicated panel to the sit-in.

In 2014, that was when we opened our exhibit, Sit Down and Take a Stand, that looked at the sit-in and the role of Tucker, and we showcased some of our artifacts that we have that belonged to Samuel Wilbert Tucker, that belonged to the family. And it was a panel exhibit that we had. And then we also had little buttons that said "sit down and take a stand." And I was working on the research for that exhibit, looking at Tucker, looking at his influences. I had talked to Steve Ackerman. We'd actually done research at Howard [University] and researched the professor, Howard Thurman at Howard, who was a big influence on Samuel Wilbert Tucker and [who] was teaching him about peaceful demonstrations because Thurman had traveled to India and had seen what Gandhi, I think, was doing at the time.

So there were all these different influences. [I was] talking to anyone who really had known any of the sit-in participants or what they remembered. And then a great, a huge help—and it wasn't for the exhibit, but came later—was when Brenda, Dr. Brenda Mitchell-Powell, shared with me her dissertation and then her research, and then that was leading up to her book, Public in Name Only, which is a wonderful book, looking not only at the sit-in, but the Alexandria library system and what's going on in the context of the time period. It's just an incredible read for everyone.

In 1999, a filmmaker named Matt Spangler directed a documentary about the sit-in, and you were involved in that too. What do you remember about that?

Matt, from my memory, lived not too far away and would often walk by the museum and noticed the stone at the corner of North Alfred and Wythe, and the fact that this building that we're sitting in now was built in 1940 as a result of the 1939 sit-in. And he kept walking by it. And from talking with Matt, I remember him saying it just kind of inspired him and spurred him on, that more people needed to know about this story. And he had never made a documentary before, as far as I know, in his life, and he wondered if he could do it. And I remember him saying that he talked to his mother about this, and it was just like, just debating back and forth. I mean, “am I the person to do this? Should somebody else be doing it, doing this, or telling the story?” And she was just very encouraging, that if you don't step out of your comfort zone and try something new, you might regret it.

So I think he took that advice to heart and worked on the sit-in and got a great team of people together. He came to us with this idea, and Louis Hicks was the director at the time, and I was the assistant director/curator, and we were behind it and we thought it would be great if we could create this documentary. It's something that could premiere for the 250th anniversary of the City of Alexandria. And so the Black History Resource Center funded part of the documentary. The Office of Historic Alexandria funded part of the documentary. And then also the committee for the 250th celebration of the City of Alexandria funded part of the documentary.

Going back to 1939, in the months after the sit-in, the City of Alexandria constructed a segregated library—the building that is now part of the Alexandria Black History Museum. What should we know about this building?

In 1940, the city opened the Robert H. Robinson Library, which was a segregated facility for African Americans. And being in this space, you can see that it's actually not a very big space. So if you imagine it with bookcases around the wall, an area for the librarian to sit, tables and benches and chairs, and I think there was even a little janitor's closet. It was not a very big space. I think it's probably about 700 square feet of space for the community. But the community, while they wanted full integration—make no mistake—they really did embrace the space, the Robert Robinson Library, because it was their community library. They had very dedicated library staff. They were very interested readers. They were always requesting more books and different books for the collection. There were also programs, storytelling, art programs, art exhibits that happened here. So it became part of the community.

And then after the years when it was a library, and then it became, for a short period of time, a bookmobile station, that was just like a depot as they prepared for the bookmobile. And eventually, after the fight to save the old Alfred Street Baptist Church, the group that worked to fight to preserve that 19th century part of Alfred Street Baptist Church looked around and realized that there was no Center for Black History in Alexandria. So that was when the Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage was formed, and it was their goal to create a museum.

Is it correct that the Robinson Library, the segregated library, was only as big as the room we are sitting in today, with these four walls?

Just these four walls. The original windows are still in this room, so the original footprint and the door is to the left of me. And what's really interesting is that in this room (to the left of me, off camera) is a case that has a miniature of the [Robinson Library] reading room, that was done by our great volunteers, Sharon Frazier and Linwood Smith, who are incredible dollhouse makers. And we've had three shows over the years with their dollhouses. Their dollhouses look at African American buildings in Alexandria that no longer exist and [that] they remember using. And what I love about the miniature they created is that you see some magazines in the front of the miniature, and they're actually magazines from our collection that they miniaturized. And so it's based on their memory. And then when we talk about educating people about the sit-in, they have educated people over the years about the sit-in through this dollhouse and through the multiple shows.

[See photos and read about Frazier and Smith’s dollhouses here.]

The Alexandria Library is also bringing attention to the sit-in. What do you attribute to the growing momentum and interest in this event?

Rose [Rose Dawson, the library director] has always talked about the fact that we [at the Black History Museum] had always celebrated the sit-in and talked about it, but they weren't doing it as much at the library. And she's made an effort to make sure that story is told through an exhibition they [the library] created. For the 75th, there was an outdoor festival or anniversary celebration [at the library] where there were speakers and a lot of city organizations had tables and we were all sharing what we knew about the sit-in and also encouraging people to get involved. And then her staff worked on the state historic marker that you'll find on Washington Street about the sit-in. So it's been a great collaborative effort over the years, working with the library, seeing how they've expanded the story, continuing to talk about the story here, ourselves, at the museum. And I think with Brenda's book, it really is just the icing on the cake that we have a way that we can tell this story in so many ways and get that story out to people all over the United States. I know Rose speaks about the sit-in at conferences and gives lectures, as do I. And I think that all of our work together will make sure that Tucker's story is not forgotten and that the sit-in of 1939 really becomes a crucial part of American civil rights history.

What does it mean to the community to shine a light on this moment in history?

I think it's meant a great deal to the community, because being a very early civil rights action, I mean, I think it's something that Alexandria as a whole can be very proud of—that you have these two situations for civil rights where you have African Americans taking control and showing agency over, whether it's in 1864 [when Black soldiers who were labeled contraband (the legal term for those who escaped from slavery during the Civil War) won the right of burial in what was until then a Whites-only national cemetery] or whether it's in 1939, over their lives and access to what they feel they need and that they should deserve as citizens. Especially 1939. I mean, these young men could not get library cards, but their parents are paying taxes to the city. They don't have equal access to all city facilities. Why couldn't they have full integration?

And what does it mean to you personally?

All of the history that I work with just means a great deal, because I often imagine the people who made that history seeing it now through the eyes that I get to see it through. And I often wonder, like, did they ever think that this would happen, that we would have full integration? I mean, and the fact that they had to have faith that we would have full integration and they had to keep up that fight. And I think you see it very early on in Alexandria's history, even in the 19th century, with our contraband story, with the contraband coming into Alexandria because we were a Union stronghold. We have a phrase that we use in Alexandria that these contraband, or escaped slaves, came into Alexandria seeking freedom, but many did not live long in it.

It is so important to everyone in this country to have those rights, to have equity, to have access to all facilities, to all things, to education, so that you can really be all that you can be.

You see story after story of the contraband who just wanted to be free, just wanted to have education, just wanted to have the possibility of freedom for their children. And that's all anybody wants. And you see these stories that we hear about in the 19th century that resonate with me today. In the Freedom House Museum, before we changed the exhibits, there was a large image of contraband in the main hallway. And I would always walk by that and look at the eyes of the men and women and children in that picture and just wonder: did they ever see or ever even imagine that there could be a place that would tell their story, or that there would be a museum director who's African American? I mean, you know, they're just trying to survive.

And I just feel so privileged that I get to tell their story and share their history and share it in a way that connects people with understanding about the core of basic civil rights and how it is so important to everyone in this country to have those rights, to have equity, to have access to all facilities, to all things, to education, so that you can really be all that you can be. We say that often enough, but if you don't have access and you don't have equity, you can't. You need to have a fair and equal playing ground so that you can be the best you can be. And I think that's important for everyone.

I am glad that all of these stories are now being told and being told in a very public way and are becoming a core and a part of the fabric of the history of the city of Alexandria that's interpreted through every historic site and all of the programming we do. So I think these are great changes that have happened—changes we owe to those who came in the past.