Loading Map....

Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/11/2019
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Location
Reinsch Library Auditorium, Marymount University

Categories


Halls Hill native Wilma Jones tells the story of this small community that got its start in 1850 as a plantation. After the Civil War the residents were African American, and many were descendants of slaves. Ms. Jones tells the history of the neighborhood through her family’s experience.

My Halls Hill Family: More Than A Neighborhood is about a community located on the north side of Arlington County, Virginia. The people who grew up there remember it as a special place that was more than a neighborhood. The community was built on faith, hard work and a spirit of gratitude. They also had fun and knew how to party, but understood how important education was to achieving the dreams and goals for their families.

The community got its start in the mid-1800’s when 327 acres of land was purchased by Bazil Hall for a plantation. Following the Civil War, the neighborhood became 100% African American. Many of the residents were descendants of slaves. It was walled off and fenced in by developers with the permission of the County Government from the early 1900’s until the 1960’s. Despite enduring discriminated from government Jim Crow laws, segregated schools and few services, the community and its people thrived.

My Halls Hill Family tells just a few of the stories of the neighborhood and how my family came to live there and raise their family from the mid-1800’s to the 1960’s. The community was unique in some ways and accomplished some historic events and institutions. The purpose of this book is to save these stories and to inspire others in similar communities to save their community and family stories, too.

The program is free and open to the public. It will take place in the Reinsch Library auditorium on the Main Campus of Marymount University. This event is part of a 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 or call: (703) 892-4204.

DRIVING DIRECTIONS and FREE PARKING: Attendees 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.)