september 2026 Edition
The Mob and the March
As the sun came up on August 28, 2026, members of the Faith Initiative climbed onto a bus headed to the Lincoln Memorial and the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington. As the sun went down, Alexandrians gathered at Shiloh Baptist Church to take stock of what our community, and what Black and Brown Alexandrians in particular, are experiencing in these uncertain times. All was done in remembrance of 16-year-old Benjamin Thomas, who was the victim of racial terror perpetrated by a white mob in 1899.
Rev. Shelly Wood, who leads Old Presbyterian Meeting House and co-chairs the Faith Initiative with Rev. Quardricos Driskell, reflected on the morning event.
“Standing where thousands of people had stood and heard Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give his historic, I have a Dream Speech was moving, but more powerful was hearing the present day speakers lifting up the injustices and the ongoing threat to civil rights still very much alive today.”
Jotaka L. Eaddy, the founder of the Win With Black Women Collective, was one of those impressive speakers. Drawing consistent and enthusiastic applause as she spoke, Eaddy said,
“For generations, we have been told to wait, to shrink, to smile when disrespected, to be strong when broken, and to fight and then be forgotten. We have watched our history be erased, our votes threatened, our bodies politicized, our brilliance exploited, and our humanity questioned. And still, my sisters, we rise.
Still we vote.
Still we organize.
And still we lead.
But there comes a moment in time when patience becomes permission, and silence becomes betrayal — and that moment is now.”
At the other end of the Mall, a very different scene played out on July 4th, as masked, uniformed men marched to the Capitol, hoisting Confederate and U.S. Flags (some in distress) while chanting, “Reclaim America. Life, liberty, victory,” they were members of the “Patriot Front.”
In a display meant to intimidate, the white supremacists rode on the metro in a body to and from the Capital. Photos of individuals of color riding the trains while surrounded by unidentifiable white men made their way through the media ecosystem.
Roswell Encina, a middle aged man of color, was depicted sliding down his metro seat while Patriot Front members towered above him. “I was scared,” he admitted to PBS News he didn’t know who the masked men were or what they were planning to do, so he “made myself smaller.”
Online commenters didn’t get why Encina or Bernita Bowlding, the African American woman swarmed that same day by the gang of white men, were upset. They weren’t touched, they weren’t “bullied physically,” they were left alone, they wrote.
Encina generously explained, “it is hard to understand what a person of color goes through in this country, especially when you are by yourself in a contained space - the position you’re put in - and not knowing what is going to happen next.”
The juxtaposed scenes show what we have known all along, that racism, hate and the mob are still with us and the march for civil, political and human rights must continue. When privilege is confronted by diversity, when white power is asked to share, when identities are threatened, the mob materializes.
At the Remembrance of Benjamin Thomas event (later that evening), featured speaker, NAACP Deputy General Council Myesha Braden, focused her remarks on “the mob” that has been used across the centuries to oppress Black and Brown people.“The point of the mob is always the violence,” Braden said.
It was born in the aftermath of the Civil War when ex-confederates tried to stop Black men from exercising the rights of citizenship and wrest power back for themselves. At first, Congress stepped in and outlawed the mob. A new Justice Department held members of the violent exconfederates accountable. But after Presidential pardons and the lifting of sanctions the old guard surged back to power and unleashed the mob to intimidate Black voters and office seekers and to keep white and Black people apart.
Frederick Douglass decried the public's seeming toleration of the mobs who “hang, shoot, burn men of my race without justice and without right” and asked why “in Heaven’s name” the North befriended those who brought war to their doorsteps. Black people, he said, “only ask to be treated as well as you treat the late enemies of your national life.”
But the people of the North had grown tired of the constant work of making the people in the South play fair. There were more immigrants arriving, labor was demanding attention and there was a desire to maintain political power. In 1872, President Ulysses Grant urged Congress to promote reconciliation by passing the Amnesty Act; they did and 150,000 former Secessionists were again able to participate in political life. Within a decade, Congress stopped intervening on behalf of African Americans. In the vacuum mobocracy spread from the South into New England and the West.
Douglass, who had witnessed the end of slavery, the rise of equality and the violent backlash that followed, wrote in 1894,
“strange things have happened of late and are still happening. Some of these tend to dim the lustre of the American name, and chill the hopes once entertained for the cause of American liberty…When the moral sense of a nation begins to decline, and the wheels of progress roll backward, there is no telling how low the one will fall or where the other will stop. The downward tendency, already manifest, has swept away some of the most important safeguards of justice and liberty.
The Supreme Court has, in a measure, surrendered.
State sovereignty is essentially restored.
The Civil Rights Bill is impaired.
The Republican party is converted into a party of money, rather than a party of humanity and justice.
We may well ask, what next? The pit of hell is said to be bottomless. Principles which we all thought to have been firmly and permanently settled by the late war have been boldly overthrown by the defeated party. Rebel rule is now nearly complete in many states, and it is gradually capturing the nation’s Congress. The cause lost in the war is the cause regained in peace, and the cause gained in war is the cause lost in peace.”
Douglass died in 1895, the same year that future President Woodrow Wilson founded the Southern History Association with Thomas Nelson Page, whose writings “championed the Klan, disparaged Blacks and praised slavery as virtuous. The articles in the association’s journal regularly praised Southern society for its diligence in protecting the purity of the Anglo-Saxon race, particularly now that Northerners had stopped meddling in affairs,” according to Colin Woodard’s book, Union The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood.
North and South were being knitted back together with a mythical yarn, a historical narrative that felt good on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line but lacked credibility. The nation’s white owned publications embraced a history that promoted the idea that God chose white people to tame the wild west and in so doing, forged an “American” identity in prairie fires. A tale of white supremacy Wilson would grow taller in 1902 with the publication of A History of the American People.
Woodard said Wilson’s history was popular among periodicals and newspapers, but derided by scholars who criticized its sentimentality, dearth of research and, um, facts. In it, Wilson disparaged Black Americans, excused Black Codes and claimed the KKK was merely a social group that liked to prank and jest. He ignored Congressional investigations that documented hundreds of lynchings, acts of terrorism and massacres of Black communities.
The impact of Wilson’s narrative was undeniably wide and had a hand in channeling the Lost Cause fiction into the nation’s identity. The creator of the 1915 film Birth of a Nation, read A History of the American People front-to-back and included entire passages - Wilson’s own words - on text cards that appeared in the three-hour silent film.
Wilson’s ideal American was anglo saxon and protestant. He took a dim view of the waves of immigrants arriving from southern and eastern Europe, writing in his history, “There came multitudes of men of the lowest class from the South of Italy and men of the meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland, men out of the ranks where there was neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence; and they came in numbers which increased from year-to-year, as if the countries of the south of Europe were disburdening themselves of the more sordid [morally degraded, vile] or and hapless [unfortunate] elements of their population.”
While close to 3 million Irish, German and Northern European immigrants made their way to the US in the 1840s and 50s, driven by famine, political conflict and religious persecution, after the Civil War and up to 1920 more than 20 million people from Southern and Eastern Europe arrived.
By the late 1800s, Italian Americans were victims of lynching crews, Irish Americans faced discrimination in housing, jobs and society, and the Chinese were stopped from immigrating to the United States. While no group had endured enslavement nor were they treated as unfairly as African Americans, those without WASP credentials were marginalized. In order to be considered “American” immigrants were incentivized to become anti-Black, and either join the mob or sympathize with it.
Clearly, Douglass had been prescient. Early into the 20th century former rebels and insurrectionists gained control of Congress. Then, in 1912, with the election of Woodrow Wilson, they won the Presidency. When Douglass penned his prediction in 1894, Edward Douglass White, Jr., who had fought as a Confederate soldier during the war, was a US Senator from Louisiana. On a cold day in 1913, US Supreme Court Chief Justice White swore President Wilson into office.
“Then came a remarkable illustration of what American institutions really mean, a man born in the South took the oath as president and it was administered by a man who 50 years ago was in arms against the government. Chief Justice White is the first ex-Confederate soldier to swear in a President of the United States,” wrote the New York Times reporter covering the inauguration in “How Wilson Was Sworn In,” March 5, 1913.
Almost immediately upon taking office, Wilson agreed with Cabinet members to throw away the 30-year-old Civil Service Act. That law required those hired to pass a competitive examination leading to white and Black people working together despite the best efforts of Jim Crow. It further established the Black middle class in Alexandria and Washington. But with Wilson’s rule change, African Americans were demoted and fired and all applicants for civil service positions were required to submit a photograph. As a result, the hiring of Black people plummeted. It is likely Alexandria’s public schools, Black owned businesses and non-profits were hit pretty hard.
Within a matter of months, federal workers and public services were completely segregated. When Wilson’s Black supporters questioned his policy, Wilson said he believed segregation would improve government efficiency and if they didn’t like it they need not vote for him in 2016.
Once World War I broke out, Wilson was able to push several authoritarian Acts through Congress: the Sedition Act, the Espionage Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act. Freedom of the Press, Free Speech and other civil and political rights were undermined. The President used the bully pulpit to question the loyalty of Americans of German descent - no matter how long their families had been here. His policies required citizens of German ancestry to register with the federal government, carry registration cards at all times, submit to DOJ surveillance and gave the government power to confiscate personal property. Thousands were placed in internment camps, including 30 members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra “who had been falsely accused of refusing to play ‘The Star Spangled Banner,” according to Woodard.
At the same time, the mob continued to terrorize and massacre African Americans in St. Louis, Tulsa, Omaha, Knoxville and Chicago. Wilson refused to denounce the large scale violence and terrorism when asked to by National Black organizations.
This is his legacy - including the "ethnonationalism" he cultivated,” writes Woodard, adding after Wilson’s presidency, “The Klan continued to grow, claiming four to six million members by the mid-1920s, and by then owned 150 magazines and newspapers, two colleges, and a motion picture company. Showings of the Birth of a Nation remained a central part of their recruiting strategy.”
Feeding on anti-Black, anti-catholic, anti-jewish, anti-immigrant and anti-union feelings the Klan reached every corner of the nation. It has been estimated that 15 percent of the eligible population were part of the hate group, a mob that used arson, lynching, boycotts and massacres to murder and intimidate Americans. Notre Dame, the University of Dayton and Regis Universities sustained KKK attacks. They used their violence and power to elect governors and congressmen in every part of the country except the Northeast.
Just weeks after Wilson’s death, Woodard continued, “Congress passed an Immigration Act imposing rigid, racially based quotas aimed at maximizing immigration from Northern Europe and minimizing it from the rest of the continent, and prohibiting Asian, African and Arab peoples entirely.” The Immigration Act of 1924, known as the Johnson-Reed Act, also established the first U.S. Border Patrol. Yet the immigration of Mexicans and other Latin Americans was not restricted by this law because too many businesses relied on their labor.
By the mid-20th century, forced to face its illiberalism by the Cold War fight against communism, the federal government returned to enforcing the constitutional provisions protecting Black rights, dismantling segregation, and fighting attempts to discriminate based on race, color or sex. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a new immigration law, the Hart Cellar Act. It ended quotas, gave preference to families and those with skills and set up equal numerical caps for entry - including Mexicans. The 20,000 cap was much lower than US Businesses said they needed - the Mexicans came to work in the US just as they always had, but now, they were undocumented.
Historians have said the 1965 Immigration Act changed America forever because it led to a much more diverse population. Conservatives who disliked the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act, “reserved special criticism” for the immigration law.
Harvard University’s Orlando Patterson identified a through line from the trio of laws he refered to as the “civil rights revolution” to Barack Obama’s election. Princeton Historians Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer add the election of Donald Trump to Patterson’s thread. While some saw Obama’s election as the “ultimate triumph of racial diversity,” they wrote, Trump’s first term as President was a “revival of a powerful strand of white nationalism.”
On Jan. 6, 2020, a mob attacked the U.S. Congress to stop them from formalizing Trump's electoral loss and declaring Joseph Biden the winner of the Presidency. Five years later, after being reelected to a second term, President Trump pardoned the members of the mob.
In Alexandria on Aug. 28, NAACP’s Myesha Braden said, “When we understand the mob is not a relic of the past but is the current government, we organize, we mobilize, we bring tools.”
Braden encouraged people to “tell the truth loudly, deal with the history, sit with the history and consider the history… give your time and energy to an organization, if you can’t do that, give your money, and finally vote and defend the rights of others to vote.”
This is not a new story, more times than not in American history the machinery of government has endorsed mob violence against Black and Brown people, which is why “Black community organization is always and will always be the answer to the mob,” Braden said.
The struggle for civil rights has to be practiced by those faithful to the Constitution in each generation. And so, the march continues.
Upcoming ACRP Scholarship Fundraising Events
Each year, ACRP awards two Alexandria City High School Seniors $3,000 to pursue further education. The Scholarships are in the names of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas who were lynched in Alexandria in 1897 and 1899, respectively. To raise money for the annual awards, ACRP is offering a Table of Conscience book-themed dinner this fall and launching a new fundraiser called Discerning Dinners. Please consider joining us, meeting new people and engaging in interesting conversations while raising money for these scholarships.
Tables of Conscience
America, USA, How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries by Eddie Glaude, Jr.
Saturday, Oct. 24
6-9 p.m.
Location provided a week in advance.
8-10 Seats
$125
In this beautifully written book, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., harnesses the voices of W.E.B DuBois, John Dos Passos, Herman Melvill and Martin Luther King, Jr. among others to reflect on America’s complicated 250-year history. Glaude, Jr.’s writing captures the essence of James Baldwin, delivering a straightforward, honest critique of race relations and the state of democracy. The book, that helps readers create a relationship with the past so that a better future can be imagined, and has been described as “moving” and “profound.” Don’t miss this opportunity to read one of today’s leading essayists and engage in a thoughtful discussion with neighbors.
Reserve and pay for your tickets in one convenient spot.
NEW! Discerning Dinners
Come out for a night of community and conversation around an interesting topic at the first Discerning Dinner. Twice a year, ACRP will host a simple dinner with a featured guest. The inaugural will be this November.
The Underground Railroad with author Tony Cohen
Thursday, Nov. 5
6-8 p.m.
Historic Lloyd House
Tickets $40
Total of 40 seats available.
The first of our Discerning Dinner conversations will feature a discussion of the Underground Railroad with Tony Cohen, co-founder of the Montgomery County Lynching Memorial Project. Cohen, an expert on the Underground Railroad, has explored it from Maryland to Canada and recently led a group on a walk through the history from Maryland to Toronto.
- Learn more about Cohen’s work and his most recent trip to Niagara.
- Historian retraces Underground Railroad on "Freedom Walk" to mark America's 250-year journey. Jericka Duncan and Kerry Breen, CBS News, June 27, 2026.
Reserve and pay for your tickets in one convenient spot.
Upcoming Events
Grown-Up Field Trip: Black History in Archives
Friday, September 25
6:30 - 8 p.m.
Archives & Records Center, 801 S Payne Street
$15 / person; $12 for Historic Alexandria Members
SOLD OUT
Engage with archival documents while learning about Black life in Alexandria during the early 20th century. Through letters and other primary sources, discover how archives are used to preserve community stories. This event takes place at the Alexandria Archives and Records Center, and includes a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility. The center is fully accessible and has parking nearby.
Alexandria NAACP Branch 7043 Freedom Fund Dinner
Thursday, Oct. 1
6:30
The Satire Hotel 625 First Street
Tickets $200/person
The annual celebration of community leadership, civil rights advocacy and collective progress is the major fundraiser for the local chapter. Ticket purchases directly support the Alexandria branch’s work to protect voting rights, expand educational access, strengthen community safety, and empower the next generation of leaders.
Current ACRP Projects
ACRP is dedicated to finding ways to research and share our past with Alexandrians and visitors in an effort to build a relationship with our past that will move us toward truth and reconciliation. In addition to our newsletter that features Alexandria’s untold histories or unique perspectives on our past, ACRP has three major projects moving our community forward together.
The Committee of Inquiry into Post-Civil War Alexandria (COI) is engaged in significant research to comprehensively document the history of the city from the close of the Civil War until the passage of the 1902 Constitution. The resulting report will right the historic record and provide recommendations for remedies wherever possible.
The Remembrance Student Club’s Banned Truth Tour exposes Alexandria City High School Students to this city’s historic African American communities, the role our town played in the domestic slave trade, the Black experience during the Civil War, Alexandria’s Reconstruction Leaders and then the local fight against Jim Crow and segregation. On a series of field trips, students learn from experts as well as community members connected to this history. The tour culminates in a showcase of student work with the community.
The Faith Initiative is a loose federation of Alexandria's historic bodies of faith that are working to develop and deepen relationships across congregations and faith to support the greater Alexandria community. To honor the 250th anniversary of America, the clergy have been visiting historic Black and white churches in Alexandria to learn more about our shared past.
Upcoming Committee Meetings
The Committee of Inquiry will meet on Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 7pm at Alexandria Black History Museum.
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project Steering Committee will meet on Wednesday, Oct. 14 at 5:30 at Alexandria Black History Museum.
Past Committee Meetings
The Committee of Inquiry met on Monday, Aug. 31 at 7 pm at Alexandria Black History Museum and established deadlines for 1865-1875.
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project Steering Committee met on Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 5:30 p.m. at Alexandria Black History Museum and discussed the Thomas Remembrance, reviewed plans for Remembrance students for the fall and winter, and learned about progress on the Committee of Inquiry.
Alexandria Community Remembrance Project
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project (ACRP) is a city-wide initiative dedicated to helping Alexandria understand its history of racial terror hate crimes and to work toward creating a welcoming community bound by equity and inclusion.
In Memoriam
Write "ACRP" in Comments on the donation form.
Office of Historic Alexandria
City of Alexandria, Virginia
ACRP@alexandriava.gov