Built by the People Themselves: African American Community Development in Arlington, Virginia, from the Civil War Through Civil Rights

The story of how racial segregation and suburbanization shaped lives, the built environment, and the law in Arlington

In Built by the People Themselves, Lindsey Bestebreurtje traces the history of the Black community in Arlington, Virginia, from the first days of emancipation through the civil rights era in the twentieth century. A core insight of her account is how common people developed strategies to survive and thrive despite systems of oppression in the Jim Crow South. Moving beyond the standard story of suburbanization that focuses on elite white community developers, Bestebreurtje analyzes African American-led community development and its effects on Arlington County.

Lindsey Bestebreurtje has served as a curatorial assistant with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture since 2015. Her publications have appeared in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography and Reviews in History.