The Byrd Machine and Its Impact on Arlington and Northern Virginia

AnnetteMarch 9, 2023

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Date/Time
Date(s) - 03/09/2023
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location
Reinsch Library Auditorium, Marymount University

Categories

Lecture

This program is free and open to the public. You can attend via Zoom or in-person. See details below on both ways to attend.

Journalist and author Michael Lee Pope will detail the rise and fall of the last great political machine in Virginia. The organization rose to power during the era of Jim Crow, wielding power and influence over everything from who got the nod to be governor to how the state maintained racial segregation. Inheriting its tactics from two previous political machines, the Byrd organization operated with a pathological hatred of debt spending, crushing the power of labor unions, and forcing its will on African American schoolchildren protesting separate and unequal facilities. The nadir of its era was massive resistance, a move to close public schools rather than integrate them.

Michael Lee Pope is an award-winning journalist who lives in Old Town Alexandria. He has reported for the Alexandria Gazette Packet, WAMU 88.5 News, the New York Daily News and the Tallahassee Democrat. A native of Moultrie, Georgia, he grew up in Durham, North Carolina, and graduated from high school in Tampa, Florida. He has a master’s degree in American Studies from Florida State University.

This book will be available for purchase at the event. All proceeds benefit the Arlington Historical Society.

Attend via Zoom or In-Person

PREREGISTER FOR ZOOM ACCESS. You can attend this event on either Zoom or in-person on the Marymount University Main Campus. If you prefer 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/1FAIpQLSedoZbWZuOOq9cH5ZWIOmgvcaMQvN2Ji5C8QAa2mxR991JKcw/viewform?usp=sf_link

Please register by Wednesday, March 8: Zoom access information will be sent to you the morning of the event on Thursday, March 9.

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.

This event 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.