ALEXANDRIA, Va. — On Aug. 21, 1939, five young Black men walked into the Alexandria Library at 717 Queen St., asked for library cards, were refused, and sat down to read. All five were arrested.
The date was not an accident. It was the second anniversary of the library’s opening — a building paid for with public money that Black residents were barred from using.
The demonstration is the earliest recorded sit-in protesting segregated access to a public library in the United States, predating the lunch counter protests of the 1950s and ’60s by roughly two decades. Most Americans have never heard of it.
The lawsuit came first
Attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker organized the protest, but he tried the courts before the sidewalk…