Stream the Arlington Reads author talk with Curtis Sittenfeld and Library Director Diane Kresh by May 11, 2025.
Authors
Video: History of the American Nazi Party in Arlington
With Local Author and Historian Charlie Clark
Watch now: https://youtu.be/2m-9t8UznbQ
Since the violent protests by white supremacists in Charlottesville, VA in 2017, the threat of renewed political agitation by neo-Nazis has haunted public safety officials. There may be some lessons to be learned by looking into our own local history.
Why did George Lincoln Rockwell, a former American Navy veteran, choose Arlington County as his base of operations for his racist and anti-Semitic American Nazi Party? This and other questions are answered in Clark’s illustrated talk, presented in partnership with the Center for Local History.
A longtime journalist in the Washington, D.C. area, Charlie Clark writes the weekly “Our Man in Arlington” column for the Falls Church News-Press. He has just published his fifth book, a memoir of adolescence titled “My Gap Year–Reinterpreted.” Last year he published “George Washington Parke Custis: A Rarefied Life in America’s First Family,” with McFarland Books. With the History Press, he has published “Lost Arlington County, Arlington County Chronicles,” and “Hidden History of Arlington County.” In July 2019, he retired as senior correspondent for Government Executive Media Group, part of Atlantic Media. He previously has worked as an editor or writer for The Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly, National Journal, Time-Life Books, Tax Analysts and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. He lives in East Falls Church with his wife Ellen.