ARLINGTON, VA., September 28, 2026: Arlington Public Library, in partnership with the Arlington Historical Society and the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington, will host the Stumbling Stone dedication ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 11 a.m., to honor the lives of former enslaved African Americans Bess (born ca. 1735) and Nann (born ca. 1747), at the intersection of N. Quincy Street and 10th Street North. Nann and Bess were once enslaved by the Wheeler and Triplett families in the 18th century, living and working on the land where the Central Library now is located.
Featured speakers include Diane Kresh (Director of Arlington Public Library), Tim Aiken (Representative of Memorializing the Enslaved Arlington), Holly Karapetkova (former Arlington Poet Laureate) and Dr. Scott Taylor (President of the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington).
Later this fall, Arlington Public Library’s Charlie Clark Center for Local History will host "Black History Revealed" a day of interactive African American genealogy workshops, free and open to the public as part of the Library’s Arlington 250 programming. On Nov. 21 from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., participate in breakout sessions led by four esteemed speakers and nationally recognized genealogists:
- Andre Kearns, author, speaker and Founder and CEO of Black Ancestries
- Lisa Fanning, board member of the Directors of the National Genealogical Society and expert in African American genealogy and genetic genealogy
- Tyrone Goodwyn, Vice President of the North Carolina Genealogy Society and member of the National Genealogical Society
- Luke Alexander, genealogist and community historian, focusing on African American and Indigenous heritage in the Carolinas
Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptop, tablet or smartphone device for the afternoon sessions, along with any family names, dates, locations, documents or research questions they would like to explore.
Arlington Public Library offers access to various genealogy tools, including Ancestry Library Edition and HeritageQuest, to trace family and community histories. Visitors can also explore newspaper archives featuring The Washington Post, Alexandria Gazette, and Evening Star. Additionally, Arlington Public Library's Genealogy Research Guide provides curated resources, research tips, and recommended sources.
This African American genealogy workshop is made possible by a generous grant from Virginia Humanities and is a collaborative effort among Arlington Public Library, the Charlie Clark Center for Local History and the Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington. The Friends of the Arlington Public Library support all of the library’s programming.
About Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington:
Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington, a joint initiative from the Arlington Historical Society and the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington, is an ongoing local history project dedicated to uncovering the lives and legacies of the individuals once enslaved in Arlington County, Virginia, from 1699 to 1865.
Now in its third year, Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington has installed 19 memorial bronze plaques on sidewalks across the county, identifying 1,050 former slaves by name. The bronze plaques commemorate the last known locations where enslaved persons once lived or worked. These bronze plaques, called “stumbling stones,” are made by students at Arlington Tech High School. When the information is known, these stumbling stones are engraved with the enslaved person’s first and last names, the date of birth and the date of death.
Arlington, Virginia is the first southern community in the United States to memorialize enslaved individuals in this way. Inspired by the German Stolpersteine project to honor victims of the Holocaust, Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington’s “stumbling stones” commemorate the African American journey from slavery to freedom in Arlington County.