The First Museum Director to Mark the 1939 Library Sit-In

The 1939 library sit-in in Alexandria, VA, was the first civil rights demonstration in the United States to demand desegregated access to a public library. But the event is not well known. For many decades, it was rarely talked about, even among those in the community, and for the sit-in organizer, the young lawyer Samuel Tucker, the immediate result of the sit-in was disappointing: it led to the building of a segregated library just a few blocks from the original library instead of the desegregated access he envisioned. But years later, in the 1980s, at the site where the segregated library stood, African American residents established a center to help people learn about this story and many others. It was eventually called the Alexandria Black History Museum.

Eugene Thompson, an Alexandria resident, was tapped in 1987 to become its first curator, and once he learned more about the building and the story of the protest, he installed a stone marker and plaque to commemorate the sit-in. We sat down with Thompson, then 78, to gather his recollections about the plaque and early exhibits, conducting our interview in the building directly across the street from the now-renovated and expanded Alexandria Black History Museum. The conversation below, on video and as a transcript, was recorded on April 22, 2024, and is an excerpt of a longer interview. It has been edited for clarity.

Let’s start with your childhood and how you grew up—and how you eventually came to be interested in museum work.

Well, I'm a native Alexandrian. My family's been here since my father's side, since at least 1842. And if you go to the slave master side, we've been here in Virginia since about 1680, which I just found out in the past five years. I grew up at 510 South Pitt Street, on the south side of Alexandria. We used to refer to it as the Hill, and I went to the old Lyles-Crouch Elementary School.

I went to Parker-Gray High School, which was just down the street from here. When I was in high school, the one thing I really liked was history. So I always thought that when I went to college, I would eventually become a history professor, which did not happen. I think I went to a lot of schools. I won't tell you how many, but eventually, after I finally went to college for about three years (I went to Marquette), I left without a degree. I needed a job, and I found a job working at the National Portrait Gallery, and what at that time was called the National Collection of Fine Arts, as a library technician. And that was my first adventure into museums. It was not history, but it got me very close, and I think it was probably there that I found the connection between art and history.

After that, I was out a little while; then in 1986, I saw a job working for the Office of Historic Alexandria, one weekend a month at the Lyceum [one of Alexandria’s oldest buildings and the site of the city’s main history museum]. I needed a job, so I applied for it, and I got it. And it eventually became a part-time job of 19 hours a week. No benefits. But while at the Lyceum, I took kids on tours. I learned a lot. I learned how to set up exhibitions....

Then in 1987, I heard a rumor that the city of Alexandria was going to take over what was then the small Black history museum—I think they called it the Black Historical Society—that opened in 1983, with your Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage and Alumni Association of Parker-Gray [the city's Black high school before desegregation]. Now, was I qualified to be director? No, but I made my interest known to, I think, Jean Federico, the director of the Office of Historic Alexandria. I think it was she who suggested that I go to the Smithsonian and sign up for the courses like Introduction to Museum Management and also collections management. And for some strange reason, I got the job as the first curator of the Black History Resource Center, as it was called at that time.

Can you tell us more about how the Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage supported the establishment of the Black History Resource Center?

It was a group of people who wanted to preserve the history of the Parker-Gray school, which had closed at that time, and it evolved into collecting the history of those of us who were African American. I was not a part of it at the time, I have to admit, but it was [established by] the society. And they do have a small collection across the street [where the museum is now]. Not many books, about 30 when I got there, and just some few pictures of Parker-Gray [School], but they'd done, I think, an interesting job over the four years that they tried to do it on their own, and then they just reached a point, I guess in 1986 or ‘87, they asked the city if the city would take over. And, since the city was already doing stuff on African American history, the city agreed, and I became a part of it.

Do you remember the first exhibit you curated that appeared in the resource center?

I had an entire year to think about what we wanted to do. And since it was related to Parker-Gray School—that was the reason why we had that place—I wanted to do something on education. So I came up with a title first, Bonds to Alexandria's Black Public Education, and then I had to decide what went in it.

But fortunate for me, Alexandria Archeology and Dr. Pam Cressey had done all of this research on African American communities. So for me, it's obvious that's the first part of your exhibition, African American communities, the churches, how [the community work] evolved into education. And then I just only had to curate, really, the second part, which is all the photographs about the schools from 1867 up to [Parker-Gray’s] closing in 1975 or so. And I was able to go out and find things like the 1867 first document, or charter, for the public Black schools in the city of Alexandria, and 1915 photographs from the Snowden School for Boys and the Hallowell School for Girls. And they just happened to be next door to me, with my neighbor.

It took a lot of people, especially those in other museums in the Office of Historic Alexandria that worked with me, to get my first exhibition in that 700-square-foot space.

And I went to the Alexandria schools’ archives and found a lot of different things. And the librarian in Alexandria was very instrumental in helping me find things. But it took a lot of people, especially those in other museums in the Office of Historic Alexandria that worked with me, to get my first exhibition in that space, in the 700-square-foot space.

Thinking back to your first days on the job, what was your first impression when you walked into the building? It was a quite small library.

I think I'd only gone to that library about twice when I was younger and just as a student. But I went into the space and I said, “it's such a small room.” That was my first impression.

But what was most thrilling about that day was that I had all of these people who were so excited to see a Black curator. The word curator was not handed around as loosely as it is today. So when I came in, they were just so proud, and that was it—how happy the people were to work with me. Like Colonel Ethel Underwood, who became my volunteer coordinator and put everything together for us for the next seven years that I was the director of the museum. But I think the excitement and the joy that people had. And then trying to figure out: what am I going to do with [the] space? I'd never been a museum director. So everything I did, I was learning on the job.

Do you remember what it looked like inside when you first started? Some exhibits online show some old black-and-white photos with kids packed in for story hour.

Can't remember that much. I know it had some books. It had a bookcase in front, I think, in front of my desk. I can't remember what was on the other side, where there were so many things. I just can't remember that. I know there were not many books at all. I, as I said, maybe 30 to 60, not the thousands that we now have in the Watson Reading Room.

Those photographs [of the interior of the library] were given to us by the librarian when we opened in 1989. Later in the year, I did a small exhibition on the walls in that lobby about the sit-in, and it wasn't made public, so I had to explain to people what it was when they came in.

Who were some of your mentors when you started?

Many were the people from the Alexandria Society and from the alumni association of Parker-Gray, because I spent a lot of time talking to them. Many of them were much older than I was, and I was 42. I learned so much from them about the history of Alexandria that I did not know, even as a native Alexandrian. One was Harry Burke, who was the president of the society, who had a lot of interesting history. John Stanton, who lived down in the 600 block, was in the museum every day discussing stuff with me for hours, which is how I learned the history. Elsie Thomas would often come into the museum—and Elsie Thomas, believe it or not, is the reason we have the Watson Reading Room.

Tell us more about the Watson Reading Room, which is part of the Black History Museum today. Elsie Thomas was the sister of Samuel Wilbert Tucker. How did she make it happen?

When the museum opened on April 8th, 1989, I stood up there and welcomed all the people. And one of the things I said was, “I hope one day we will have a research center.” And she heard that. And in about two years—and I think I said it in a newspaper article later on—and she and her friends in the Sunnyside section [of the city] were given a couple hundred thousand dollars by the city to do something. They weren't going to use it. And she suggested that they use it to build a resource center as a tribute to Thomas Watson, who was the mentor for [Samuel] Wilbert Tucker. He taught Tucker law. And of course I said yes. And she went to the city and she did all the legwork, and all of a sudden we got the $400,000, whatever it was, and they purchased the two houses that were next door to us and converted them into the Watson Reading Room.

That's how we got that reading room, by just saying, “this is what I want.” And somebody listened. So those are the people who really cared. Actually (stop me when you have to), but usually if I needed something, I knew who to go to and which people would go to city council and work with me. They had been around for so long, and many of them had even worked in the civil rights areas, like, Mr. Lawrence Day [first Black magistrate in Alexandria], Ferdinand Day [the first Black school board member in Alexandria]. You know, if I needed something, they knew who to talk to. So there were a lot of people who helped me. So my job, as learning on the job, was made easier with all of these people supporting me.

When did you first hear about the 1939 library sit-in?

You know, I'd like to say I grew up hearing about the sit in. I did not. And I'm not even sure I knew about it until I was an adult. And I'm not even sure that I paid that much attention to it until after I was hired as the director of the center, because that was what that entire year was when I really started: doing more research into what had been going on. And it's interesting because Mr. Gaddis, who was a part of it, and Mr. Strange, they were all members of my church, but I had not heard, and I'm sure the older people knew. But I just had not heard it growing up, even though I had gone over there a couple of times as a child; I honestly did not know. I'm sorry to say that, but I didn't. It was as I did more and more research that I became aware of it.

You know, I'd like to say I grew up hearing about the sit in. I did not. And I'm not even sure I knew about it until I was an adult... [After I learned more about the event], I decided to put that plaque there on my own. I just decided something needed to be on that corner.

But most of what I became aware of, believe it or not, was after I left the museum in 2009, when I was asked to give the lecture on the 70th anniversary. So I spent about eight months going in and out of the Library of Congress, reading old newspapers. And I wanted to know what African American newspapers thought about us and were they were talking about us? And they were, as I mentioned in my little 10-minute speech that I gave in 2009. I think most of what I knew, and know now, I learned then, but since I left, Audrey Davis and the people at the museum have learned so much more.

Tell us about installing the small stone marker with the plaque outside the building. That plaque became a key to getting the story out to a wider audience. Filmmaker Matt Spangler says he first learned about the sit-in when he spotted the plaque while walking down the street one day.

You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say it has become key, because I decided just to put that plaque there on my own. I just decided something needed to be on that corner. At that time, we didn't have a sign in front of the building that said the Black History Resource Center. So I talked to Jean Federico, the director, and I said, “hey, we need a stone or something.” And as she always did, she found the money, and I went down to Apperson and Dent, the tombstone makers in the city, and asked them, “hey, can you help me?” They suggested a stone. That's the stone they suggested. I did the text, all of it, and I was hoping there were no mistakes when I did it. I've done that before. And we did not have a ceremony or anything else. It was just placed there, and that was it. I didn't think anybody was paying attention to it till I met you, till I talked to you.

What year was the plaque installed?

I'm thinking it might have been after 1990, after the time when Wilbert Tucker and his law partner Oliver Hill came here for a ceremony, which was held in the old Charles Houston Recreation Center. And I think it was sometime after that that I put that stone in. It was probably not earlier than 1990, whenever they were here.

What was your hope for the plaque?

That we would encourage more people to come into the museum, because I think one of the problems we had was that we did not have enough people coming to the museum. We knew we did not have enough foot traffic. So how do you get the people to come in? And it was my hope that when people would see that—they were always walking by, wondering if it was a church—that people would see that and come into the museum. I know that's one of the reasons why I wanted that plaque to be on that corner. And it did work from time to time, and we still don't have as much traffic as we want, so we need to find a way to redirect people off of King Street to come up here in this area.

Do you remember who funded the creation and installation of it?

It was city funding. Usually if I needed something, it came through the city; every once in a while, you could get something from the Alexandria Society. And they did what they could. So they were very helpful for smaller things, which I appreciate, like sending me off to a meeting or something. But major things, the city of Alexandria—and Jean Federico pushed to get the money for whatever. One of the best things about that museum was having Jean Federico as a director of the Office of Historic Alexandria, because she made sure that we got what we needed, even if she had to talk to other museums to say, “save some money and pass it on to the Black History Museum.” That's the way it worked.

And yet before that, the relationship between African Americans and the city government was not so good, is that right? How would you describe your relationship with city officials?

Well, you can say it was a racist city. It was. I've been here all my life. I don't object to saying that in 1964, when we became an All-American City, we became an All-American, racist city. Those things went on here in the city of Alexandria. But the city, to its credit, over the years, did preserve history and did try to preserve African American history, again, through Alexandria archeology and other historians.

So what was the relationship between me and the city of Alexandria? I thought at that time, and I think to this day, [that] Alexandria was in the forefront of the preservation of African American history by a city government. And, as you can see, what's going on now through all of the different initiatives that are going on through the Office of Historic Alexandria, that it continues. I can remember when I went to my first meeting, [of] what was then called the Association of African American Museums or the African American Museums Association. I think some people were kind of envious, but some people were saying, “well, what's going to happen when you lose the funding?”

You can say it was a racist city. It was... But the city, to its credit, over the years, did preserve history and did try to preserve African American history, again, through Alexandria archeology and other historians.

Well, it's been 37 years, and I think because of the city councils that we've had, we have not lost the funding. That's not to say [that] five years from now our council people are not going to change and we'll lose the funding. But so far, it's been a very strong relationship, a very positive relationship. I don't believe I'm saying that about the city, but it is true.

What are some of your best memories of working at the museum?

Best memories? Well, the opening, of course—the dedication on April the 8th in 1989, because we honored, I think, five people. I'm not going to forget the names: Helen Day, Reverend Stanton, Mr. Ferris Holland, Annie B. Rose, and Natalie Vaughn, who was a teacher. So that was a great day to see so many people come to the opening of the exhibition and to the opening of the museum. Except for not being paid enough, I didn't have that many negative things to really say about the museum. I got the support that I needed, even from the other museum curators. So I can't think of anything that negative. But everything, to me, was a positive. I think I would have stayed, but sometimes it might have reached the point where, as the first director, you went through a lot and there could be burnout. And I think for me, that's what it was, more than anything else.

Did you have enough staff? Audrey Davis, the current director, was one of your hires, yes?

Well, of course, you always—the one thing I always fought for was to get more staff. So when it opened, I think I was the only employee. But again, Jean Federico did get money for me to get a museum aide. And I think my job at the time was actually 19 hours a week, for more than a year, and it was eventually, eventually—thanks to the pushing of some of my supporters—eventually made full time. And I was able to get someone to work with me. But you're right, you always needed more than one or two people.

I think Audrey might have been the third person that I brought in. I brought her in in 1993, and only worked with her over a year and a half before I left. And I remember she was another one of my University of Virginia people. I think I had two others, two interns before that. And then Audrey came along. I think because I'd had such success with the two interns from the University of Virginia, I hired Audrey, which was good for me because I think we complemented each other well. She's a great extemporaneous speaker. I write speeches. She's great at writing and editing. And she just worked well for that time that we were working together.

What does it take to elevate and make visible the accomplishments of the African American community in a city like Alexandria?

That's a tough question. You know, growing up in Black communities, or any community, you hear that it takes a village to raise a child. So that's not just Hillary Clinton. It takes a whole village to raise a child. And that's what it took to get us to where we are now: a group, a collection of a lot of different people, not just people who are African American. And it's my hope that as we review our history, we will begin to look to the history of Alexandrians through an African American lens, and I'm hoping by looking through that African American lens, it will make that history clearer for everybody.