Notable Persons
Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack, a vocalist and pianist known for hits such as “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and “Where is the Love,” began her music career in Arlington. She often played classical repertoire on the piano, as well as hymns at Lomax A.M.E. Zion Church in Green Valley where her mother, Irene, also played. Excerpted from Arlington Magazine.
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Lutrelle Fleming Parker, Sr.
Lutrelle Fleming Parker, Sr. was a tireless advocate for progress in Arlington County who left a legacy of remarkable civic engagement that spanned the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation of the County’s schools and businesses.
Born in Newport News, Virginia in 1924, Parker served in the U.S. Navy on the HSS Manderson Victory during World War II as one of the Navy’s first black officers. His commitment to the Navy lasted 40 years, retiring from the Navy Reserves in 1982.
After the war, Parker worked at the U.S. Patent Office in 1947 while also studying engineering at Howard University. He began as a patent examiner and later performed a wide range of jobs for this office during his long career, including being a trial attorney, examiner-in-chief, and deputy commissioner of the office. He received his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Howard in 1949, the same year that he moved from Washington, D.C., to the predominantly African-American Arlington neighborhood of Green Valley with his wife, Lillian Madeleine Parker.
Resource/s
Arlington Public Library | Rediscover Lutrelle Fleming Parker, Sr.
The Jones Family
Multiple generations of the Jones family, both enslaved and free before the Civil War, lived in Arlington’s Green Valley/Nauck neighborhood and helped build an active and thriving African American community there.
The earliest records are for Edy Jones, who was mentioned in a February 1786 list of enslaved people at Mount Vernon compiled by George Washington. The list describes Edy as being 13 years old and one of the “labouring women.” Edy married Davy, an enslaved carpenter who worked at the Mansion House Farm, one of the five farms that made up Mount Vernon. While still enslaved, Edy and Davy had two daughters. In 1801 the family was freed, based on the stipulations of Washington’s will. The couple then had several other children, including Levi Jones, born in Arlington between 1810 and 1813.
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Life of Gray Family
Selina Norris Gray was born and raised a slave at Arlington House, the Virginia plantation of George Washington Parke Custis. Custis, the adopted son of George Washington, also owned her parents, Leonard and Sally, along with X other individuals. He had inherited many of his slaves when Washington died in 1799, and set them to work in 1802 building his new home, which he intended to store and display a variety of objects associated with the nation’s first president. When Custis died in 1858, the Washington treasury passed to his only child, Mary, the wife of Robert E. Lee. Selina became very familiar with these artifacts because she served for many years as Mary Lee’s personal maid, a position that required her to tend Lee’s growing household. Selina also married and raised a family of her own at Arlington.
Resource/s
Life of Gray Family - Black Heritage Museum of Arlington
