Alexandria Library is the public library in Alexandria, Virginia in the United States.HistoryIn 1794, Alexandria Library opened as a private lending library, calling itself the Alexandria Library Company.In 1937, Dr. Robert South Barrett donated funds to build a public library in memory of his mother, physician Dr. Kate Waller Barrett (1857-1925). The Society of Friends granted a 99-year lease for use of its former Quaker Burial Ground (then used as a playground). An informal agreement provided that the interments would not be disturbed, although the few gravestones were transferred to the Woodlawn Quaker Meetinghouse and a granite marker acknowledges the former use. Thus, the new library building was built without a basement, but rather on a concrete slab foundation (as were subsequent additions). The Library Company cooperated in this effort, contracting with the Alexandria City Council to turn over its collections to City of Alexandria as the City agreed to include the public library's operating expenses in its budget.Due to practices common in Virginia and other Southern states at the time, the public library originally only permitted white residents to use the facility. On August 21, 1939, several young African American men, in a strategy devised by attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker (who grew up about two blocks from the new library), staged a peaceable sit-in at the library to enable African Americans to use that public facility. Although they were arrested, charges were ultimately dropped by city attorney Armistead Boothe, and a branch library was built in 1940 for African Americans and named after Robert Robinson, which closed circa 1960 and now houses the city's Black History Museum.
