Good Wednesday morning, Alexandria!
🌧️ Today’s weather: Expect showers mainly after 2pm, with patchy fog developing after 4pm and a high near 53. Calm winds will shift to southeast around 5 mph in the afternoon. There’s an 80% chance of precipitation, with new amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch. Wednesday night, showers continue mainly before 1am, with patchy fog clearing by 10pm and a low around 38. Southwest winds, 7 to 15 mph, will shift northwest after midnight, gusting up to 20 mph. A 90% chance of precipitation brings additional amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch.
🚨 You need to know
DC-based think tank New America sat down recently for an interview with Eugene Thompson, the first director of the Alexandria Black History Museum.
In the interview, Thompson discussed both the 30s and 40s history of local Civil Rights activists and his own experience as the museum was getting started in the 80s.
“But what was most thrilling about that day was that I had all of these people who were so excited to see a Black curator,” Thompson told New America. “The word curator was not handed around as loosely as it is today. So when I came in, they were just so proud, and that was it—how happy the people were to work with me.”
Thompson said that before the museum launched, while he’d grown up in Alexandria, there wasn’t as much education about events like the 1939 library sit in.
” it’s interesting because Mr. Gaddis, who was a part of it, and Mr. Strange, they were all members of my church, but I had not heard, and I’m sure the older people knew,” Thompson said. “But I just had not heard it growing up, even though I had gone over there a couple of times as a child; I honestly did not know. I’m sorry to say that, but I didn’t. It was as I did more and more research that I became aware of it.”
Thompson also said, when the museum got started, there was a lot of concern among Black history museum peers around the region about what Thompson would do “when you lose the funding”, but that City Councils have thankfully kept the museum funded for four decades.
📈 Tuesday’s most read
The following are the most-read ALXnow articles for Dec 17, 2024.
- Notes: Landmark bar scores high on national dive bar cuisine ranking (1401 views)
- First Lady Jill Biden announces departure from Alexandria’s Northern Virginia Community College (682 views)
- Alexandria City Council approves bed increase for Silverado Memory Care (437 views)
📅 Upcoming events
Here is what’s going on today in Alexandria, from our event calendar.
