As federal officials are working to erase and ignore the dark parts of America’s racist past, a family history spanning slavery, emancipation, segregation and civil rights took center stage in Northern Virginia on Sept. 11, when Alexandria honored a more than 250-year legacy of African Americans’ contributions to the region.
“Preserving and celebrating the histories of Alexandria’s long-standing African American families ensures that future generations understand the full and rich history of our community and recognize whose lives and sacrifices helped build the city we know today,” said Alexandria City Councilwoman Jacinta Greene, who presented a proclamation during the event held at the Basilica of Saint Mary.
For the Evans family, who have longtime connections to local justice work and have been trailblazers across the DMV over the past century, learning their family’s deep roots was a welcome surprise. Research revealed their family’s connection to Alexandria was part of a much larger story about the city’s early Black residents.
“During the bicentennial for the country, they had research and found out that my family was one of 27 Black families that [had] been in the city from the inception of the city,” Andrew Evans, whose descendants go back several generations in Alexandria, told The Informer.
While Evans, a celebrated comedian, knew his uncle, William Buddy Evans, and four other young Black men participated in the August 1939 Alexandria Library sit-in — at what is now the Kate Waller Barrett Branch — he didn’t understand the depth of the family’s lineage in Northern Virginia. That’s where people like Rose T. Dawson, executive director of the Alexandria Library, stepped in.
First, Dawson was determined to spread more knowledge about the sit-in, particularly when she noticed other cities taking credit for being the first to protest segregation at libraries in Virginia.
“It became my personal journey to make sure that the story was told. I realized that it wasn’t even in the library world — they didn’t know it. I had people like Petersburg claiming they were the first sit-in,” she said. “We are the first documented library sitting to occur in the nation, and over the last 20 years, I’ve made it my business to make sure that not just Alexandria knew that fact, but the rest of the public library world was aware of it too.”
Char McCargo Bah, a historian and genealogist for the Alexandria’s Freedmen’s Cemetery Descendants Project, was able to go back in time, beyond the peaceful protest, to uncover more than 30-40 documents of the family’s generational and interconnected history.
Through extensive research, she was able to uncover information about the family’s ancestors that was not easily accessible, including the comedian’s great-great-great-grandmother, Milly Evans, who was formerly enslaved and emancipated by Thompson Mason, the grandson of George Mason IV.
“She’s seven generations. Going back to the early years of Milly, [there was] Marion James Evans, who was a free slave,” Bah told The Informer. “I suspect from what all the information suggests that he met Milly on the land out there in Huntley Plantation as a bricklayer, and that’s where they got together and then moved into the City of Alexandria. And that generation started right there.”
It was that deep history that inspired Dawson and Bah to ensure the Evans family’s stories — from enslavement to today — were not unearthed, but uplifted, particularly as the nation recognizes its semiquincentennial.
Additionally, Alexandria is remembering the Evans family in more ways beyond the recognition on Sept. 11. The library showcased the photography of another Evans descendant, Elrich Murphy, who chronicled Black life in Alexandria between the 1930s and 1970s.
“Your history is rich. Your history is one that African American families can trace back,” Greene said. “So I’m thankful for people…. who realize that it is very important, extremely important, to keep our Black history alive, our African American history alive here in Alexandria, and celebrate it, and honor it, particularly as it comes under great scrutiny in our country.”
A Legacy of Activism
While Evans has forged his own legendary path as a D.C. comedy legend— even noted as a mentor to greats like Dave Chappelle and Martin Lawrence in films like “The Mecca of Comedy: The Rise of Stand Up Comedy in Washington, D.C.” — his uncle’s legacy remains a driving force in his life.
“It is imperative that we recognize the importance of these times to claim our heritage and culture for generations to come, or we will lose sight of the contributions of our ancestors,” he said. “History is never lost, it just has to be rediscovered.”
As a barrier-breaker in her own right, the story of the 1939 sit-in at Alexandria Library remains an inspiration for Dawson in her daily work.
“I have the pleasure… of serving as Alexandria’s first Black library director. And I always share that because it was [because of] the actions that those individuals took in 1939, and then some additional things also took place,” she said. “We call that our legacy of courage — with those five young African American men and William Buddy Evans was the youngest participant. They went into that library individually, knowing that they were probably going to be arrested, and they were. And so I stand on those shoulders.”
While Dawson has made it her goal to honor the history of those five young men, for years, very few folks knew of their bravery — not even some of their family members.
“The library was embarrassed about its role, and how it had treated those young men,” she explained. “And so we had a tendency not to acknowledge it. We had a tendency not to celebrate it.”
For Rita Murphy Harris, the late Evans’ niece and Murphy’s daughter, the library’s recognition of her family and father’s photography, which captured Black life in Alexandria between the 1930s and 1970, is monumental. Dawson learned about Murphy’s photography and collaborated with Harris to showcase his work at the Alexandria Library.
“My dad wouldn’t believe this is happening, because all the years he took photos, he never got any recognition for his work, and he didn’t look for any. It started as a hobby, and just, that’s what he wanted to do,” she said in her remarks on Sept. 11. “So this is just such a great honor, and I know he’s looking down to see us, and to know that he is finally getting recognition for his work.”
While Kimmie Evans-Reed is proud to see how her grandfather, the late Evans, is being remembered now, growing up she did not fully understand his importance beyond being the family patriarch.
When she entered 12th grade, she saw a photo of who she first thought to be her brother being escorted out of a building. She later learned that the person was her grandfather, one out of the five civil rights changemakers, who were more than just a photo in a local newspaper. Their civil disobedience would forever leave a mark on Alexandria.
In digging deeper into the photo, Evans-Reed was given a lesson about her family and a whole lot of hope.
“It meant a lot to me because I saw my brother in my grandfather. And being that my brother had some challenges for some years, [I thought] you know what, if my granddad can make it through that, then my brother can make it through whatever he’s going through,” she told The Informer.
Now, people, beyond just the Evans family, can remember and be inspired by the late activist in the same place where he was once arrested for fighting for racial equity.
“You know [Buddy Evans] would have been proud to know that his generation, so young, is still here, still representing. He took a chance to take a stand to have Alexandria libraries integrated. And it won, and it was a case that went to the Supreme Court,” Evans said, reflecting on his uncle’s bravery. “It really made a difference.”
Keeping the Evans Family Name Alive
Evans-Reed said she is forever changed by learning about her family’s history.
“It made me realize that we’re all a bunch of people who really are more than just a family reunion or seeing them at a funeral. I can look back in history and see that they did this. Anything that happens in my life, I know that if they went through that, I can get through whatever it is, and I can fight for whatever I believe in, and I don’t have to worry,” said Evans-Reed.
The Evans family history lives on through the values passed down to their descendants.
“I teach my grandson and his parents teach him that a man tells the truth, he stands up for the truth and he does what’s necessary,” she told The Informer. “I have to make sure that he knows it — my grandson knows it. My daughter knows it, and he has to make sure his kids know it. And so if I can instill that in him, I feel like I’ve done my job.”
For the comedy pioneer, uplifting Alexandria Black history is about more than just his family. The goal is to preserve African American narratives overall.
“The fact that we all came from a community that, at one time, the Blacks in this city were people who helped build the Masonic Temple, helped build all the constructions that you see, where we had Black laborers and Black workers, who’ve contributed to this city, and not just our family, but so many families,” Evans said.
The ceremony honoring the Black Northern Virginia history happened just days after Lonnie Bunch, the first African American secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, announced his retirement on Sept. 8. This move followed federal pressure from the Trump administration to remove certain parts of America’s racist history from the museums. With the nation navigating such realities, Evans said preserving Black history is particularly important.
“When gentlemen like Mr. Bunch, who’s the director of the Smithsonian, feel a need to leave…We have to fill that void,” he said. “We have to support that idea of [preserving the history he was trying to protect]. So it always goes back to us.”
While the Sept. 11 recognition was an honor, Evans said keeping his family’s legacy alive cannot stop there.
“We [need] to continue on for the next generation,” he said, “to make sure they understand how important family and legacy is.”
