Arlington View, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, is a historically black neighborhood in Arlington County, Virginia. It is roughly bounded by Columbia Pike, Washington Boulevard, Interstate 395, 15th Street South, and South Rolfe Street.
Arlington View arose as an African American middle class settlement in the 1880s after the Johnston family, who originally operated a plantation on the site of the neighborhood with enslaved labor, began selling plots to black residents. Many were leaving the nearby Freedman's Village community, which the federal government and other parties in Alexandria County sought to close. Arlington View became the site of the Jefferson School (later renamed Hoffman-Boston), an Odd Fellows Hall, Mount Zion Baptist Church, and other African American social institutions, many of which originated in Freedman's Village in the years after the Civil War. Throughout the Jim Crow era, Arlington View was one of several racially segregated black enclaves where African Americans were permitted to live. Its population increased during the first half of the 20th century as Arlington's black population concentrated due to the growing area taken by whites-only suburban developments and the demolition of nearby black neighborhoods during the construction of the Pentagon.
Arlington View residents, in collaboration with Arlington's NAACP branch, filed a lawsuit in the late 1940s against the county government's policies of racial segregation in education and unequal facilities relative to white schools. This built legal momentum against Arlington's long-standing racially discriminatory environment during the civil rights movement, culminating in the integration of Arlington County schools in 1959 and ultimately relieving residents of the county's Jim Crow regime by the late 1960s. Arlington View has since experienced significant racial integration and gentrification, the latter of which has raised costs of living and caused a decline in the neighborhood's black population. Several historical sites in Arlington View are commemorated with markers, and the 1881 Harry W. Gray House, the oldest structure in the neighborhood, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
History Establishment and early development
Before the Civil War, present-day Arlington View was part of an 100-acre plantation owned by John Robert Johnston, which he operated with 15 enslaved people. Johnston established the property in 1856 on land inherited by his wife Ellen, and grew a variety of crops. Following emancipation, Johnston employed some of his formerly enslaved farmhands as sharecroppers; his family continued running the farm into the 1880s.
Johnston, who served as a county official in several positions within Alexandria County's Jefferson District, established the Jefferson School in 1870 on the former premises of Fort Albany, which served as one of two schools for African American students in Alexandria County during the Reconstruction era. Despite his past status as a slave owner, Johnston supported rights for recently emancipated blacks, as well as their political participation in county politics. Johnston also donated parts of his land to Trinity Church, a black episcopal congregation that originated as a chapel for the enslaved on Arlington plantation, and Mount Zion Baptist Church, which had been founded in the nearby Freedman's Village community.
After his death in 1881, Johnston's sons Richard and William began to sell their inherited landholdings to black residents. Many were former inhabitants of Freedman's Village, which had faced increasing pressure to close from the federal government, Alexandria County's white residents, and land developers as Reconstruction faltered. Richard platted the Johnston subdivision 1888; part of this and adjacent parcels were sold to Emmanuel Jackson in 1889, who further expanded the bounds of the subdivision. Jackson advertised the community as "Arlingtonville" in publications such as the African American newspaper The Washington Bee, but it was later renamed Johnson's Hill.
While Johnson's Hill had relatively few amenities beyond the Jefferson School, which had moved to the neighborhood in 1889, it was the location of an Odd Fellow's Hall that became an important social institution for Alexandria County's growing African American middle class. Originally established in Freedman's Village in 1870, the hall organized community events, served as a credit union, and provided mutual aid. It also hosted other black community organizations, such as the Freemasons, before they established permanent locations
By 1900, Johnson's Hill had around 400 residents, a music hall, and a Masonic Lodge. New subdivisions, including Arlington View and Southgate Vale, were plated within the vicinity of the neighborhood. Many residents found employment as domestic workers and laborers in the county's brickyards, which was at the time Arlington's largest industrial business and driven by the area's increasing suburbanization. Others worked as clerks for the federal government in Washington. Prominent early residents included the Gray family, whose patriarch, Harry, was originally enslaved on Arlington plantation and lived in Freedman's Village in the post-war period. Harry and his wife Martha, who were both employees at the Department of the Interior, built an Italianate-style home in Johnson's Hill in 1881. Designed after row houses in Washington's Foggy Bottom neighborhood, the structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
Jim Crow era The expansion of commuter rail service in Arlington from 1870 to 1900 stimulated suburban development throughout the county, which centered around stops along the growing trolley network. This occurred during the rise of Jim Crow laws in post-Reconstruction Arlington that instituted a wide range of restrictions on the economic mobility and freedom of Johnson's Hill's black residents.
Many of these policies were pushed by developers and boosters including Crandal Mackey and Frank Lyon, whose Southern Progressive agenda and Good Citizens League organization defined Arlington's politics around the turn of the century. League members conducted "clean up" raids on saloons and gambling halls, most infamously in the interracial neighborhood of Rosslyn in 1904, participated in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901–02 that disenfranchised black voters through poll taxes, and developed white suburban subdivisions via racially restrictive housing covenants. The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized "separate but equal" racial segregation enabled the Virginia Assembly to pass zoning ordinances in 1912 that created "segregation districts" throughout the state, which were adopted in Arlington. While these eventually struck down by the 1917 Buchanan v. Warley decision, county planners and developers restricted the growth of black neighborhoods in other ways, including through Arlington's 1930 zoning ordinance that prevented further construction of more affordable multifamily housing in black communities.
Like Arlington's other black enclaves, the impact of these Jim Crow policies on Johnson's Hill was smaller lots, increased density, and higher land values as the county's African American community had decreasing space on which they were permitted to live. This was reflected by the layout of Gray's Subdivision, whose original 4 lot arrangement was divided into 70 individual lots following Harry Gray's death in 1913. Johnson's Hill also did not receive the same level of services or improvement as Arlington's growing white subdivisions, and had unpaved roads into the 1960s. Despite this, Johnson's Hill continue to retain its reputation as a middle-class neighborhood, and attracted black residents from Washington and around the region. It also had a series of businesses, including a grocery store, that served its African American residents, who were mostly unwelcome in Arlington's white establishments.
The neighborhood's segregated Jefferson School, which had expanded into a 4-room schoolhouse in 1915, added an 8-room addition with support from the Rosenwald Fund in 1931; it was later renamed the Hoffman-Boston Junior Colored High School in 1932 after two former principals of Jefferson and Kemper Schools. In 1939, Hoffman-Boston instituted a K–12 curriculum. Prior to this, black students in Arlington that wanted to enter high school were required to attend segregated schools in Washington; non-residents were mostly refused enrollment in D.C. schools by 1949.
Wartime demolitions and public housing
The expansion of government during World War II saw the demolition of the nearby black settlements of East Arlington and Queen City in the early 1940s, which were cleared by the government through eminent domain to make way for the Pentagon, Navy Annex, parking lots, and highways. In addition to displacing 810 residents, Mount Olive Baptist Church, which had been in Queen City since the late 19th century, was razed and relocated to Johnson's Hill. Refuse from the Pentagon's construction was dumped by the government in Johnson's Hill's ravines, which degraded the outward appearance and condition of the neighborhood.
Prevailing Jim Crow segregation in Arlington severely limited the housing options of the evicted communities, and those that were unable to find accommodations moved into two temporary trailer camps offered by the government to evicted residents. One of these, the 25-acre Arlington Trailer Camp, was located in Johnson's Hill. The camp was created by the U.S. Army after an intervention by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who after receiving a letter from an attorney representing displaced residents, pressured the House Armed Services Committee to provide housing to those made homeless by the Pentagon's construction.
The Arlington Trailer Camp was partially abandoned by 1943 due to poor living conditions, and was fully closed in 1949. Meanwhile, the Federal Public Housing Authority (FPHA) built the segregated George Washington Carver Project adjacent to the camp in 1943; many leaving the camp moved into these homes. The community consistent of 100 temporary dwellings, but were too small for many of the families. By comparison, thousands of permanent and temporary public housing units were built for Arlington's white residents during this period; none were trailer camps. Johnson Hill residents decried the Carver site as an "eyesore" until the Public Housing Administration demolished them in 1954.
In 1944, First Lady Roosevelt toured Arlington's African American public housing sites, including those in Johnson's Hill, to heighten awareness of the black community's plight. Following this, the FPHA purchased over 3 3/4 acres of land in the neighborhood to build more public housing for Arlington's African American residents. The 44-unit George Washington Carver Homes were completed on the site in 1944. They were designed by Albert Cassell, a prominent black architect and head of architecture at Howard University whose portfolio included much of the university's Washington campus.
After the end of the war, the FPHA was directed by Congress, which under the 1949 Lanham Act prioritized the conversion of wartime public housing to affordable housing, to dispose of Carver Homes. Tenants organized to purchase the property after Arlington County declined to acquire it, as they feared an alternative owner would turn it into a whites-only community. The George Washington Carver Mutual Homes Association, which formed from this effort, successfully converted Carter Homes into one of the first black housing cooperatives in the United States. Carver Homes was ultimately demolished in 2016, and is commemorated with historical markers located in the George Washington Carver Mini-Park.
Civil rights era