Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/12/2024
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Location
Reinsch Library Auditorium, Marymount University
Categories
On February 2, 1959, four Black students from the Hall’s Hill neighborhood in Arlington, County desegregated the all-white Stratford Junior High School. Often referred to as “The Day Nothing Happened,” many had believed there would be violence that day such a bombing or riots. Several local events in 1958, gave credence to that fear–including a bomb threat that interrupted a church service and the arrest of an Arlington resident at Bon Air Park for the crime of being Black. Find out how the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington (UUCA) was involved in these events and what they did about it. (Image at right is of just a few of the 100 police officers on duty in full riot gear at Stafford on the day it was desegregated in Feb 1959)
Bill Fogarty, a member of the church will explain what happened and why. Bill is a retired attorney who has lived and worked in Arlington for over 40 years. In an earlier life he was a high school English teacher, and in his current life he is helping to clean up the church archives–and finding some great stories.
Attend via Zoom or In-Person
PREREGISTER FOR ZOOM ACCESS. You can attend this event on Zoom or in-person on the Marymount University Main Campus. If you want to attend this event virtually, we will soon provide a link to register. Please register by Wednesday, September 11: Zoom access information will be sent to you on the morning of the event on Thursday, September 12.
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.)
- 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 free public programs sponsored by the Arlington Historical Society. This event is hosted courtesy of the Marymount University politics program’s American Heritage Initiative. For more information, please email: info@arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org