A belated thank you to Matt Spangler, producer/director of Out of Obscurity (2000), a documentary about the 1939 Queen Street Library Sit-in organized by Samuel W. Tucker, for joining members of my Policy Analysis class recently for a viewing and discussion of the film. The interview footage in Out of Obscurity is fascinating – it’s some of the only footage you’ll find of Tucker and the participants in this too-little-documented moment in American history.
This summer Derek Hyra and I are co-teaching the Virginia Tech Washington Semester program – which combines a summer internship in the DC area and one day a week dedicated to coursework and site visits. Here’s a copy of the course syllabus. I’m also the self-appointed Washington Semester 2011 staff photographer. A few pictures from the summer so far:
Roosevelt Island Junket Read the rest of this entry ?
A Conversation with Writer Stephen J. Ackerman and
Alexandria Black History Museum Director Louis Hicks
5:30-7:00pm – Wednesday, April 6th
Virginia Tech Alexandria Center
1021 Prince Street, 3rd Floor
Discuss the life and legacies of Alexandria-born Civil Rights pioneer Samuel W. Tucker with Louis Hicks, Director of the Alexandria Black History Museum, and Stephen J. Ackerman, who has written extensively about Tucker and his role in the 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In.
Background material:
S. J. Ackerman. 2000. “The Trials of S.W. Tucker.” Washington Post Magazine. June 11.
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Co-sponsored by the Virginia Tech School of Public and International Affairs Politics and Planning Speaker Series, the Institute for Society, Culture and Environment, and the Urban Affairs and Planning Diversity Speakers’ Series.
Seventy-one years ago today Samuel W. Tucker (1913-1990) organized the first sit-in of the American Civil Rights movement in the public library on Queen Street in Alexandria, VA. Take a moment to learn about this historic event and the too-little-heralded Civil Rights pioneer who made it happen!
Civil Rights pioneer and organizer of the first sit-in of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, Samuel W. Tucker is buried with his brother George D. Tucker in Arlington National Cemetery.
Samuel W. Tucker
In the VT Northern Virginia Center newsletter, in honor of Black History Month, my first (and only?) foray into historical biography. This short article on the 1939 Queen Street Library Sit-in organized by Civil Rights pioneer Samuel W. Tucker is drawn from a truly excellent article by local historian S.J. Ackerman. With the commemoration of the 50-year anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins, it’s useful to keep in mind that these were not isolated instances of protest. The story of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. is a story of decades of protest and resistance by people like Tucker – principled, creative, determined (often too little remembered) individuals who dedicated their lives to ending racial discrimination.
Alexandria Library, Queen Street, 1939
The Washington Post recently published a piece on the 1939 sit-in at the Alexandria Public Library on Queen Street, and a bit about the remarkable career of sit-in organizer Samuel Tucker (who in 2000 became the namesake of Tucker Elementary School in Alexandria).
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