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Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/13/2023
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location
Reinsch Library Auditorium, Marymount University

Categories


This event is jointly hosted by the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington and the Arlington Historical Society. (You can attend this event via Zoom or in-person, see details below to register for Zoom access or for driving directions to free parking.)

In June 1960 biracial groups of college students entered drugs stores in Arlington and requested service at the stores’ lunch counters. The lunch counters promptly closed. The students remained seated for hours protesting the stores’ refusal to serve African American patrons.  For the most part, the Arlington sit-ins were calm and peaceful. The exception was at the Drug Fair in Cherrydale, where American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell held a counter-demonstration. Over the course of the two days, a crowd attempted to incite the students with taunts and abuse.

Local historian Gregory Embree takes us back to that era to the planning, the fear, and the abuse. Based on personal interviews with many of the protesters, first hand reports, and in-depth documentation, our speaker will also talk about what this protest meant to the Cherrydale community, to Arlington, and to civil rights in our region.

Local historian Gregory J. Embree is a retired federal government employee who lives in Cherrydale, Arlington, Virginia.

PREREGISTER FOR ZOOM ACCESS. You can attend this event on either Zoom or in-person on the Marymount University Main Campus.  If you want to attend this event virtually, please use this link to register. You can also cut and paste the following URL into your browser: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScE4TUny1x7RPXo6fbUZ4ADUafVyT2KAxMcAK-HIsOGoWp4QQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Please register by Wednesday, April 12.  Zoom access information will be sent to you the morning of the event on Thursday, April 13.

DRIVING DIRECTIONS and FREE PARKING: Attendees planning to attend the event in-person should enter the Marymount University campus at the library gate on N. 26th Street. From Glebe Road going north, take a right onto 26th Street. Pass the intersection with Yorktown Road and then enter the campus through the next gate on your left. The library is to your left as you enter the campus. Free garage parking is just past the library at the bottom of the small incline. (Handicapped parking is immediately to your right as you enter the campus.)

  • NEW: If the University has lowered the garage gates, push the button and let them know you’re here for an Arlington Historical Society event in the library. To leave, push the button and they’ll raise the gate.

The Arlington Historical Society is proud to partner with the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington to present this event. It is one of the monthly series of public programs sponsored by the Arlington Historical Society and Marymount University’s Department of History and Politics. For more information, please email: info@arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org.