[Archived] Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Poster Exhibition and Program

To be held in Vola Lawson Lobby of Alexandria’s City Hall, January 20

On Monday, January 20, 2014 from 1:00 -3:00 pm, the City of Alexandria honors the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with its annual Poster Exhibition and Program. Posters will be on view from Alexandria City Public School students in the Vola Lawson Lobby of City Hall.  A special program will also be held in the Lawson Lobby from 1:00 -3:00 pm. This program is free and open to the public.

This year’s program is sponsored by the Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage, the Alexandria Black History Museum, the Alexandria Commission for the Arts, and the Alexandria City Public Schools Art Teachers and the Office of Equality and Cultural Competency.

The theme for this year’s program is:  Civil Rights in America: Samuel Wilbert Tucker and Alexandria’s Historic 1939 Sit-in.  In 2014, the City of Alexandria will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the historic 1939 sit-in at the Alexandria Library. The sit -in, which occurred on August 21, 1939 may have been one of the earliest actions of the modern civil rights movement.  On this date five young African American men staged a peaceful sit-in for the right to obtain to access to the then whites-only library.

The speaker for the 2014 program is Nancy Noyes Silcox, author of Samuel Wilbert Tucker:  The Story of a Civil Rights Trailblazer and 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In.  Silcox’s book, published in 2013, is the first children’s biography on Samuel W. Tucker. Ms. Silcox is the former librarian at the Samuel W. Tucker Elementary School in Alexandria, VA.

After the program, the posters remain on view in the Vola Lawson Lobby until the end of February.

For more information call 703.746.4706.