Two individuals who were once enslaved in the Bluemont neighborhood were honored during an Aug. 2 ceremony at St. Ann Catholic Church.
The ceremony honored Henry Speaks and Lidia, whose last name is unknown. They are among about 100 individuals being honored this year with commemorative brass markers, or “stumbling stones,” as part of the Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington initiative.
Nearly 20 years after its founding, the Columbia Pike Documentary Project has never run out of people, places and events to chronicle.
“The community is still in transition,” Lloyd Wolf, one of the initiative’s founders, said during a July 26 presentation at the Arlington Historical Society.
The opening of a new exhibition on Virginia’s immigrant experience included a concert by a duo that has lived it.
Judith and Ingrid Morroy performed Sunday afternoon (July 12) at the Arlington Historical Museum, marking the local opening of the “We the People: The World in Our Commonwealth” traveling exhibit of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture.
A number of hometown-style events marked Arlington’s celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4.
They went on despite some of the hottest temperatures in recent years descending on the local region.
The Arlington Historical Society is marking the nation’s 250th birthday with a commemorative keepsake highlighting tales of the county’s past.
The 32-page, tabloid-sized Arlington VA250 History Chronicle also marks this year’s commemoration of the society’s 70th anniversary.
Some local parks boosters say they are eager to work with county officials to upgrade an exhibit on Arlington’s Native American history.
Representatives of Friends of Gulf Branch Nature Center recently met with officials from the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) to discuss ways to move forward at the nature center. The meeting came after two refurbished exhibits recently reopened following a multi-year restoration effort.
The treatment of those enslaved by Bazil and Elizabeth Hall on their 330-acre Arlington farm in the 1850s was known to be excessively cruel even by the brutal standards of the era.
Last Saturday (May 30), eight of those who lived in bondage on the farm were honored with the latest “stumbling stones” placed through the Memorializing the Enslaved of Arlington initiative.
The true story of a local enslaved woman’s legal fight to earn her freedom was brought to life in a series of performances this spring.
The name “Julia Roberts” is connected in most people’s minds with the successful Hollywood actress. But an earlier Julia Roberts played a seminal, but until now largely overlooked, role in local, state and national history.
A local initiative is ensuring the experiences of Black Arlingtonians are among those highlighted as the nation marks its 250th birthday.
Local community leader Wilma Jones used the Arlington Historical Society’s HistoryFest on Saturday to spotlight “Arlington History from the Black Side.”
Arlington’s signature program celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday attracted large crowds to Kenmore Middle School this weekend.
A little rain at the end didn’t dampen the spirits of attendees or the success of Arlington HistoryFest, which earned an estimated 2,000 attendees on Saturday. Sponsored by the Arlington Historical Society, it represented the major local effort connected with the national birthday celebration.
In the mid-1700s, most of modern-day Fairlington and Shirlington was part of a plantation called Torthorwald, a rural retreat for the wealthy Carlyle merchant family of Alexandria.
When patriarch John Carlyle died in 1780, Torthorwald was home to an enslaved population totaling more than 40. And on Sunday, two of them were honored with the placement of new “stumbling stones” near the Fairlington Villages Community Center.
Arlington’s signature project honoring the nation’s 250th birthday is expected to attract a crowd of thousands in just a couple weeks.
The Arlington History Fest is slated for Saturday, May 9 at Kenmore Middle School — a date scheduled to avoid other events taking place in D.C. on the actual anniversary. It will feature more than 40 exhibitors, representation from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (Old Guard), food trucks and dozens of historical reenactors.
