History Neighborhoods and The Parker-Gray School
Alexandria’s neighborhoods, like many communities across the United States, are richly steeped in African American history. Over time, the buildings, individuals and milestones forming Alexandria’s African American footprint have been lost. From the slave trade to the Civil War – from the Civil Rights Movement to the present day, African American history is part of Alexandria’s story. While some written accounts may not have acknowledged these contributions, African Americans were there. This page provides a means to rediscover many of the important landmarks, people and events shaping the City’s history and development.
The earliest free black neighborhoods in Alexandria began between 1790 and 1810. The first community of free blacks formed at the southwestern edge of the city and became known as The Bottoms. It was located in a low-lying area west of South Washington Street, south of Prince Street, east of Henry Street, and north of Franklin Street. By 1810, this neighborhood had extended to the southeast and a new community, Hayti, emerged. Hayti was located east of Washington Street in the 400 block of South Royal Street with Prince Street as the northern border, South Pitt as the western border, South Fairfax as the eastern border, and an area between Wilkes and Gibbon Streets as its southern border. In mid-century, Uptown developed in the northwestern section of Alexandria. Also around this time, a community known as Petersburg (commonly known as “The Berg”) or Fishtown developed in an area just west of the northern portion of the waterfront.
1. 1939 Sit-In Demonstration, 717 Queen Street
In August 1939, two decades before the Civil Rights movement began, Alexandria attorney Samuel Tucker organized a peaceful “sit-in demonstration” in the Alexandria Free Library (now Barrett Branch Library). After five African American men entered the library, they were immediately denied library cards. The five men were arrested for reading books in a “white only” library because of their color, although the charges were later dismissed. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
2. Parker-Gray School, 901 Wythe Street
3. Parker-Gray High School, 1201 Madison Street
In 1950, a new Parker-Gray High School was built on Madison Street. During desegregation in 1965 it became a middle school. In 1979, the school was permanently closed. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
4. Charles Houston Elementary School, 901 Wythe Street
Built in 1920 as an elementary school for African American boys and girls. The school was named in honor of John Parker (a principal of the all-black Snowden School for Boys) and Sarah Gray (a principal of the all-black Hallowell School for Girls). In 1950, upon the opening of the new Parker-Gray High School (on Madison Street), the original school building located on Wythe Street was renamed the Charles Houston Elementary School in honor of the noted civil rights lawyer. In 1968, the school was closed. In 1969, the building burned down and was permanently closed. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
5. Lyles-Crouch School, 501 South Pitt Street
In the 1930s, a silk factory building was converted into an elementary school for African American children. The school was named in honor of two African American educators, Rozier Lyles (a Snowden School for Boys teacher) and Jane Crouch (a Hallowell School for Girls teacher). The original structure is no longer standing. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
6. Carver Nursery School/American Legion, 224 North Fayette Street
The Carver Nursery School was built as a segregated childcare facility for World War II defense workers. After the school closed in 1950, the building was leased to a group of African Americans who established an Alexandria American Legion post in honor of William Thomas, the first African American from Alexandria to die in World War I. During the years of segregation, the facility served as a primary social gathering place for Alexandria citizens. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
7. Seminary School, 3300 King Street
The Seminary School was established around 1925 as an initiative of the Rosenwald Fund, a philanthropic foundation organized by German-Jewish immigrant Julius Rosenwald. The school was one of nearly 5,000 schools built to provide educational opportunities for African Americans across the South. It operated until 1950, when its pupils were transferred to Lyles-Crouch Elementary School. The school sat on the current site of T. C. Williams High School. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
8. St. Joseph’s Catholic School, 711 North Columbus Street
(See entry for St. Joseph’s Catholic Church for narrative of school and church.) Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
9. Odd Fellows Hall, 411 South Columbus Street
The Odd Fellows, a fraternal service organization, was established in Alexandria in 1869. This handsome structure was built around 1870 with funds from the Freedman’s Bureau. It became a major gathering place for African Americans and their secret organizations after the Civil War. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
10. Departmental Progressive Club, 411 Gibbon Street
The Club was organized in 1927 by seven African American male employees from different federal government departments with the sole purpose of “creating wholesome recreation, encouragement of good character, and fostering fellowship among its members.” Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
11. Jimmy Webster’s Home and Store, 1002 Madison and 928 North Patrick Streets
Jimmy Webster was a well-respected businessman within Alexandria’s African American community in the 1940s. Mr. Webster’s residence (1002 Madison Street) and his adjoining business on the southwest corner of North Patrick Street incorporated both a beer lounge and a store. The front area of the store, on designated days of the week, served as a gathering place for adults to enjoy beer while listening or dancing to the jukebox. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
12. Alexandria Home Bakery, 1022 Pendleton Street
The popular African American bakery, owned and operated by John Wesley Jackson, was well known for its doughnuts, cakes and pies. Mr. Jackson was fondly referred to by local residents as “Baker Jackson,” but his property offered dual services to the African-American community. He allowed lodgers, unable to find rooms elsewhere due to segregation, to stay within his home. During this period, the only hotel for African Americans was the Hotel Washington, which was destroyed by a tornado in 1927. After that, the Jackson home was the only site available to support black travelers. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum, Corrine Dixon Papers
13. I.B.P.O.E.W. Elks Home, 227 North Henry Street
The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World was established in 1898 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The organization was modeled after the BPOE which did not admit African Americans at that time. For years, the IBPOEW struggled against racist attitudes and legal efforts to deny its existence. It remains a separate entity even today. The Elks Home, now Elks Lodge Alexandria 48, served as an important social and recreational gathering place for Alexandria’s African American community. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
14. Capitol Theater, 300 North Henry Street
Although the stylized Capitol Theater provided a quality film experience, it was one of only two movie theaters serving the African American community from the 1930s to the 1960s. After it closed in 1948, it was replaced by the Carver Theater. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
15. Carver Theater, 1120 Queen Street
The Carver Theater continued to serve Alexandria’s African American community throughout the era of segregation. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
16. Arnold’s Funeral Home, 311 North Patrick Street
This business first opened on Princess Street across from Third Baptist Church. In later years it relocated to Patrick Street. The owners of Arnold’s Funeral Home re-opened and built a new building at 311 North Patrick Street. Owners through the years were Mrs. Arnold, Mr. Poole, and Phillip Bell. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
17. Gray & Campbell Funeral Home, 1019 and 1021 Oronoco Street
Funeral Director C. William Gray opened the doors to the Gray Funeral Home at 1019 Oronoco Street in 1914. In 1932, the business relocated to 1021 Oronoco Street. In the 1930s, Mr. Gray added partner Robert Campbell to the business name as “Gray and Campbell Funeral Home.” The business closed in 1942. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
18. Greene Funeral Home, 814 Franklin Street
The Greene Funeral Home Inc. was opened in May 1954 by Mr. and Mrs. Nelson E. Greene, Sr. The original structure, built in 1795 as the Jockey Club, was renovated in 1959. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
19. Franklin & Armfield Slave Office & Pen, 1315 Duke Street
From 1828 to 1836, this building at 1315 Duke Street was home to one of the largest slave trading companies in the United States, and it was used by other slave traders such as Price & Birch until the Civil War. In 1996, the building became the home of the Northern Virginia Urban League which opened the Freedom House Museum on its premises. This museum is dedicated to Reverend Lewis Henry Bailey, who was sold as a child from the adjacent slave pen to a family in Texas. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
20. Alfred Street Baptist Church, 313 South Alfred Street
Alfred Street Baptist Church, founded in 1803, was the first Black Baptist congregation formed in Alexandria. By the time the property was purchased in 1842, the name was changed to First African Baptist Church. In 1855, an all-brick building, probably designed and built by free black craftsmen, replaced the previous structure. The congregation worshipped in that building for over a century, before moving next door to a new structure in 1981. Over time, the name would change multiple times to include First Colored Baptist Church, and finally to Alfred Street Baptist Church around the 1890s. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
21. Roberts Memorial United Methodist Church, 604½ South Washington Street
Roberts Memorial, erected in 1834, is the oldest African American church building in Alexandria. The congregation grew out of the white Trinity Methodist Church where attendance dates back to 1791. Roberts Memorial was founded in 1830 by nine men – four white and five free blacks. Photo: Charles Sias
22. Beulah Baptist Church, 320 South Washington Street
Beulah Baptist was established in 1863. The church grew out of the founding of a school for former slaves. When Beulah Baptist Church was built in 1863, the school moved to that site, operating out of the church. African Americans attended classes at Beulah Baptist Church until 1870 when Alexandria’s public school system was established. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
23. Third Baptist Church, 917 Princess Street
Third Baptist Church was started by a small group of former enslaved people who settled near the Potomac River waterfront in the 1800s. Historical records indicate the first worship site opened in 1863 at North Pitt and Oronoco Streets under the pastorate of Reverend George W. Parker. The group purchased an old frame structure (formerly owned by whites) at Princess and North Patrick Streets for $50. This old frame building was blown from its foundation by a storm and was rebuilt as a brick structure by the congregation in 1865. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
24. Shiloh Baptist Church, 1401 Duke Street
During the Civil War, escaped slaves sought the protection afforded by Union forces, and came to be known as “Contrabands. These contrabands were among those who established Shiloh Baptist Church. The church began in March 1863 as the Old Shiloh Society when 50 former enslaved people gathered in a U.S. government mess hall for worship. Organized in 1865 in the Toussaint L’Ouverture Military Hospital (blocks of 1300 Duke, 1300 Prince, 200 South Payne and 200 South West Streets), the congregation built a frame church at the corner of West and Duke Streets. In 1891, the current brick building was constructed at 1401 Duke Street. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
25. St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, 701 North Columbus Street
In 1914, the African American congregation at St. Mary’s Catholic Church decided to build their own church and purchased a property at 711 North Columbus Street. It became the first mission church for African American Catholics in Northern Virginia. In 1928, the Catholic diocese established the first Northern Virginia Catholic elementary school for African American children, operated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence, an African American order of nuns out of Baltimore. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
26. Freedmen’s Cemetery, South Washington and Church Streets
During the Civil War, African American refugees flooded into the Union-controlled city of Alexandria seeking freedom, safety and employment. Soon, the need arose to establish a burial ground for Alexandria’s burgeoning contraband and freedmen population. Thus, the U.S. Army Quartermaster Department established the African American cemetery in March 1864. The Superintendent of Contrabands managed the cemetery until December 1865, turning over operations to the Freedmen’s Bureau on January 1, 1866. The cemetery, with its more than 1,700 burial plots, was closed in January 1869, when federal rule ended in Alexandria. Photo: Alexandria Archaeology Museum
27. “The Fort” African American Community, Fort Ward Park, 4301 West Braddock Road
African Americans established “The Fort,” a community continuing nearly a century after the Civil War into the 1960s Civil Rights Era. The name was derived from its location on and adjacent to Fort Ward, one of many Civil War fortifications. In the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, four generations of families living at The Fort and in the larger “Seminary” community were connected through shared kinship, marriage, church, and work. Old grave sites remain, with the earliest known grave marker dated October 13, 1897. Members of Seminary and Fort families are buried there. Burr and Harriet Shorts once owned the burial ground that, as early as 1930, became known as the “Oakland Church Lot,” now bordered by Fort Ward Park. In 1939, a portion of the current cemetery was conveyed to Oakland Baptist Church, which Harriet and her daughter Clara Shorts Adams helped found. Photo: Fort Ward Museum
28. USO/Pendleton Street Recreation Center, 1005 Pendleton Street
The facility was established during World War II as a recreation center for African American servicemen. Due to overcrowding at the Parker-Gray High School, an agreement was struck between school officials and the United Service Organization (USO) to provide Parker-Gray students use of the Pendleton USO classrooms and cafeteria. From that point on, students left the Parker-Gray School and walked one block down Patrick Street so that they could be served lunch as well as attend class. Photo: Photographer Unknown
29. Cason Corner Store, 800 North Patrick Street
In keeping with his energetic entrepreneurial spirit, Reverend Willie Cason opened and operated a delicatessen in the early 1950s. This business venture enabled Rev. Cason to provide a much needed service to the community. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
30. Out Cross Canal
The “Out Cross Canal” neighborhood derived its name from its location at the northeast section of the city, right across from the Alexandria Canal. It was a quiet, rural area established in the Civil War era. Residents of the neighborhood were often employed at the Bryant Fertilizer Plant, on the wharfs, or at the Old Dominion Glass Factory. Photo: Rudolph Siebert
31. Colored Rosemont, Wythe and West Streets
“Colored Rosemont” evolved as a small African American enclave in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was situated adjacent to the “White Rosemont” neighborhood. The second Parker-Gray School was built in this neighborhood. Only a few houses remain today on North West and Madison Streets, as remnants of the neighborhood. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
32. Robert Robinson Library, 638 North Alfred Street
Named for a pastor at Roberts Memorial United Methodist Church who stressed education in his sermons, the Robert Robinson Library was established in 1940 as a segregated library for the African-American residents of Alexandria. It was the City’s response to the 1939 “sit-in” demonstration at the Alexandria Free Library (today the Barrett Branch Library). Attorney Samuel Tucker refused to use this new library, protesting it as a “separate but unequal” facility. It served as the only public library facility for blacks in the city until the early 1960s when public facilities were integrated. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
33. Meade Memorial Episcopal Church, 322 North Alfred Street
In 1869, Christ Church established a “Mother’s Mission” by parish women to aid poor women. This became a mission church of 150 to 170 people. Several African American members sent word to the November 1872 Christ Church vestry meeting asking for a separate church for “colored persons.” The church remained on its site near the canal until April 22, 1873, when the chapel was put on logs and rolled down Columbus Street to its new site at Princess and Columbus Streets on land offered by Mrs. Fitzhugh, aunt of Mrs. Robert E. Lee. The church reopened on May 18, 1873. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
34. People’s Flower Shop, 509 North Alfred Street
Established in 1948 by Arthur Bracey, an Industrial Arts teacher at the Parker-Gray High School, and his wife Miriam, this shop is still in operation today. Photo: Alexandria Black History Museum
35. The Johnson Pool, Payne and First Streets
On July 30, 1951, two brothers, Morris Leroy Johnson, age 11, and Lonnie Richard Johnson, age 9, drowned while swimming in the Potomac River. A year later in response to their drowning, the City opened a segregated pool facility for African Americans. On February 27, 2010, a new pool at Charles Houston Recreation Center was dedicated in honor of these two brothers and other African American youth who had drowned in the Potomac River or Hunting Creek because of the former segregated swimming pool policy. Photo: Photographer Unknown
36. Lewis Funeral Home, 800 Wolfe Street
With his first funeral home in Washington, D.C., Mr. Lloyd Lewis opened a second Lewis Funeral Home in Alexandria in 1932 at 1201 Queen Street, and relocated it to 800 Wolfe Street in 1937. After subsequent owners (Phillip Bell being one), it closed in 2012. Photo: Photographer Unknown
The Parker-Gray School
The Charles Houston Recreation Center is located on the original site of Virginia’s legendary Parker-Gray School. This historic property within the Uptown/Parker-Gray Historic District of Alexandria dates back to the 18th century. Before residences developed in the areas, the military used the vacant land for various purposes. During the period of 1790 through the end of the Civil War, the military established on the site a military-run bakery, a gun mill (or magazine), a parade ground, encampments, hospitals, and stables.
In 1920 the City of Alexandria consolidated two existing African American schools – Hallowell School for Girls and the Snowden School for Boys, and erected the Parker-Gray School at 901 Wythe Street. Students from the two schools were enrolled in the new school. The City purchased a portion of land from the Henry Daingerfield estate to build Parker-Gray School, so named to honor the two well-respected African American educators John Parker (Snowden School principal) and Sarah Gray (Hallowell School principal). The school eventually housed both elementary and high school students.
In 1950, a new Parker-Gray High School was opened at 1201 Madison Street. The old school was renamed in honor of Charles Hamilton Houston, the civil rights lawyer and Howard University Law School Dean who was triumphant in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court case. This court ruling paved the way to desegregate all schools across the nation. During the desegregation years of the 1970s, Charles Houston Elementary School was closed and the children were transferred to Jefferson Houston Elementary School. In the early 1970s, the vacant Charles Houston Elementary School was destroyed by fire. In 1976, a recreation center was built on the site of the former Parker-Gray High School and Charles Houston Elementary School site. The recreation center was torn down in 2007. And the new state-of-the-art Charles Houston Recreation Center opened on this historic site in 2009.
Alexandria African American Hall of Fame
