Determining the Facts

Reading 2: The Nation’s First Sit-In

During the interval between when Sergeant Wilson and Samuel Tucker requested a library card and the final decision on the civil suit that followed in January, 1940, a follow-up attack on the segregated facilities at the Alexandria Library occurred.  On August 21, 1939, five young African-American males were involved in an even more audacious defiance of library rules and regulations, a sit-in.  The youths involved, between the ages of 18 and 22, were five out of an initial group of 11 who were recruited and secretly trained by Samuel W. Tucker over a 10 day period.  He instructed them on what to say, what to wear, and how to act.  Tucker planned the sit-in with care so that the young men would not be arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct.  He wanted the main issue in the library case to be the legal basis of the whites-only policy of the library.  Borrowing from the tactics utilized by labor protesters in the late 1930s, Tucker instructed the youths once they were refused a library card to: “say thank you, go to the stack, pick up a book, any book, and go to the table and sit down and start reading.  Next person goes in, and same thing but don’t go to the same table, everyone goes to a different table, so they can’t be talking to each other.” ¹

Samuel W. Tucker ingeniously combined two tactics that would become the cornerstone of the Civil Rights movement.  He attacked the system of Jim Crow through direct-action, the sit-in, and acted as counsel for the trials that followed questioning the legality of segregated libraries.  Attacking the system of Jim Crow through the courts was the preferred way of bringing about change by the more conservative National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights organization that first used the court system in fighting segregation in 1910, merely a year after its founding.  In addition, the five young Alexandrians were supposedly the first in the nation to use the tactic of the sit-in in the struggle for civil rights.  The sit-in, a form of non-violent protest, would become an important tool during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.   

The sit-in of August 1939, masterminded by Tucker, received national media attention as the astute lawyer deliberately alerted the media to the events taking place within the confines of the Queen Street Library.  Unfavorable to the event, however, was the invasion of Poland by Hitler within days of the sit-in.  Not only was media attention now focused on the war in Europe, but the involvement of the United States in World War II is believed by some, including Tucker’s law partner and Civil Rights crusader Oliver Hill, to have delayed the development of a Civil Rights Movement in the United States.  The energy of all Americans for the time being, both black and white, was focused towards support for the war effort.  It was not until after World War II that African-Americans once again turned their attention towards civil rights.

The Alexandria Gazette, one of the many local and national newspapers that chronicled the library sit-in, details the events that took place that day:

Five colored youths were arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct today on the complaint of Policeman John F. Kelley, after they entered the Alexandria Library, withdrew books from the shelves and sat down at a table to read, despite the fact that they were asked to leave by Librarian Miss Catherine Scoggin.

A sixth youth who accompanied the group left the library after police arrived, and was not held. 

The youths arrested according to police, included Otis L. Tucker, 22, 916 Queen Street; Edward Gaddis, 21, 335 North Patrick Street; Morris Murray, 22, 813 Prince Street; William Evans, 19, 610 S. St. Asaph Street; and Clarence Strange,807 Duke Street.

The Library has been used by white persons only after it was donated to the city by Dr. Robert S. Barrett several years ago, however, action was taken by a colored resident to secure library privileges, and his petition to secure a writ of mandamus, compelling the librarian to issue him a card, is now under advisement of the Corporation Court. ²             

Ms. Katherine Scoggin, the young librarian on duty that day, was startled when the young men walked in one at a time and asked for borrower’s cards.  Not sure of how to handle the situation when the five youths refused to leave the library, she ran across the street and informed the City Manager, Mr. Budwesky, of the events taking place at the library.  The city manager then alerted local police.  The police peacefully arrested and escorted the five African-American youths from the library to police court when they refused to leave the library willingly.  Samuel Tucker later remarked that Morris Murray said of the events: “Everything went all so politely, that one would have though that I [Tucker] had also told the police what to do.” ³  Nonetheless, the first trial was scheduled for a week later on August 29.      

Samuel Tucker’s wife, Julia E. Spaulding Tucker, recalls the events of 1939: 

…And that was in 1939.  His brother [Otis Tucker] was one of the sitters, and two or three of his brother’s friends.  They called Tucker to get them out of jail because they had had them arrested for sitting in the library, just reading a book, paper or something.  But Negroes were not allowed in the public library at that time and I don’t think the case ever came to trial…⁴    

Initially a deal had been worked out in which the five youths would be tried separately in Alexandria’s police court.  However, the outcome of the second trial would supposedly dictate the ruling on the other four.  Tucker cross-examined the policeman that arrested the five youths at the library:

“Were they destroying property?” asked Tucker. “No,” replied the officer. “Were they properly attired?” queried counsel. “Yes,” the officer replied. “Were they quiet?” “Yes,” the officer responded. “Then they were disorderly only because they were black?” asked Tucker.  The officer admitted that the only disorder in question was because the men were members of the Race [black] and the library was for white people. ⁵ 

In spite of Tucker’s preparations, the judge charged the youths with disorderly conduct.  Tucker argued that there was no local law that forbade the use of the library based solely on race.

Armistead Boothe, the city’s attorney and opposing counsel in the case, argued that the library was not public and that custom dictated the use of the library by white Alexandrians alone.  Realizing the weakness in his argument Boothe then took another approach.  He argued that since Virginia and six other southern states were “forced” to approve the Fourteenth Amendment, that they should not be legally compelled to abide by its promise of due process and equal protection under the law.  Despite both lawyers’ arguments, Judge Duncan asked the attorneys to file briefs based just on a charge of disorderly conduct.  The judge not wanting to make an official ruling in the case never recalled it before his court again. The judge decided several times to have continuances, or hear the trial at another time, and never recalled the case to his court.  A decision was never made in the case of the five youths.

Questions for Reading 2

1. What was Samuel Tucker’s motive when he arranged the sit-in? Why were the boys instructed on what to say and what to wear? What were the two tactics that Samuel Tucker combined that became the cornerstone of the Civil Rights movement?
   
   
   
2. What major event occurred that took media attention away from the sit-in? How did Oliver Hill characterize its significance?
   
   
3. What was the result of the sit-in in regard to the men involved?  What were the five youths charged with?
   
   
   
4. Samuel Tucker originally recruited eleven young men to be a part of the sit-in.  Only five of those young men actually participated in the sit-in.  Would you have agreed to take part in the 1939 library sit-in?  Why or why not?  What risks did the participants face in playing a part in the sit-in?  What positive outcomes did the participants encounter as a result of choosing to participate? 
   
   
5. What might have been the outcome if the five men had not acted cooperatively and were confrontational during the Queen Street Library sit-in?
   
   
   
6. Do you believe the 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In was successful?  Why or why not?

 

Readings 2 was compiled from “5 Arrested forUsing City Library in Virginia; Case Puzzles Judge,” Chicago Defender, 2 September 1939, pg.1; Julia E. Spaulding interview by John H. Waley, Jr., February 28, 1995; Gretchen Babcock,“Alexandria Library” (Alexandria, Virginia) National Register of Historic Places Preliminary Information Form, Richmond, Virginia, 2002; Douglas J. Smith, Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North

 

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1. Quote from Douglas J. Smith, Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 246.

2. Arrested at City Library,” Alexandria Gazette, 21 August 1939.

3. Quoted in Douglas J. Smith, Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 264. 

4. Interview by John H. Whaley, Jr., February 28, 1995. Special Collections and Archives, Virginia Commonwealth University.

5. Quoted in “5 Arrested for Using City Library in Virginia; Case Puzzles Judge,” Chicago Defender, 2 September 1939, pg. 1.