William Newman Jr., who served as Arlington’s first Black County Board member and as chief judge of the county’s circuit court, has died.
Newman died at his home yesterday (Tuesday), leaving an enduring legacy that some consider one of the most consequential in Arlington’s recent history. As word has spread, tributes have poured in.
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This week marks the 67th anniversary of the integration of Arlington’s Stratford Junior High School by four Black seventh-grade students: Lance Newman, Michael Deskins, Gloria Thompson and Michael Jones.
McDonald’s is coordinating with Hall’s Hill residents to replace a local Black history mural after the company’s contractor demolished it earlier this month.
In a new response to residents’ questions and concerns, the fast food chain acknowledged the significance of the 33-year-old brick and cinder-block wall on its property at 4834 Langston Blvd.
The effort to memorialize people enslaved in Arlington is receiving an additional push over the coming month before it takes a winter break.
Six “stumbling stone” ceremonies have been planned through mid-November at locations across the county. They began Saturday in the Arlington View neighborhood with the unveiling of three new bronze markers embedded into the sidewalk.
As a 23-year-old voter in still-segregated 1960s Virginia, Portia Haskins was convinced she had followed all the rules in order to cast a ballot in Arlington.
Election officials disagreed, saying she had failed to pay the appropriate poll tax still required in the Old Dominion, maintained in part to disenfranchise Black voters.
The planned sale of a historic property in the Penrose community may be a way for the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington to find a permanent home.
An online fundraising effort is seeking to help purchase the circa-1900 home at 2312 2nd Street S. In the early 20th century, this served as the Hunter Station trolley stop, where the Fort Myer branch of the D.C., Alexandria and Falls Church commuter-rail line connected to trolley service.
New “stumbling stones” are honoring the lives of two individuals enslaved in present-day Boulevard Manor in the 18th century.
The brass markers in the sidewalk at 516 N. Livingston Street honor the lives of Con and Killemacse, who in the mid-1700s were enslaved on farmland that now forms the Boulevard Manor neighborhood.
New research is shedding light on a 40-acre military camp for Black soldiers that fanned out from the southeast corner of Columbia Pike and S. Courthouse Road during the Civil War.
Camp Casey served as a key recruiting and training ground for the military regiments that would become known as the U.S. Colored Troops. Some of the soldiers had been enslaved, while others were either born free or emancipated.
Sitting on the reference stacks at the Charlie Clark Center for Local History at Arlington Central Library are five thick, blue, nearly 50-year-old bound editions.
They are the archives of the Arlington County Bicentennial Commission, which, from 1974 through the end of 1976, was tasked with overseeing local efforts to celebrate the nation’s 200th birthday.
Two brothers born into slavery in the 1820s have been honored with new “stumbling stone” historical markers on Columbia Pike.
The bronze emblems, embedded into the sidewalk at the intersection of the Pike and S. Ode Street, honor the lives of Thornton and Daniel Check.
Arlington leaders on Tuesday (May 13) honored the legacy of a once-vibrant community wiped off the map to make way for construction around the Pentagon.
Board members also expressed regret at how those residents were treated by county leaders eight decades ago.
Fire Station #8’s dedication ceremony on Saturday included equal nods to the past, present and future.
“It symbolizes struggle, determination, progress,” Arlington Fire Chief David Povlitz said at the formal opening of the four-bay, three-level, 20,000-square-foot facility that is expected to serve until at least the mid-2070s.
