Patrick Henry Library To Be Renamed Honoring Family's Role In Integrated Library

VIENNA, VA — When Vienna's Patrick Henry Library is renovated, it will reopen with a new name honoring a family's legacy to establish an integrated library.

The Fairfax County Public Library's Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to rename Patrick Henry Library to the Vienna-Carter Library. The name honors the Carter family, a multiracial family with roots in Vienna and Fairfax County history. One member of the family, William McKinley Carter was a charter member of the Fairfax County NAACP and helped establish an integrated county library branch in the Town of Vienna.

At the time the library was established, the other town library had a whites-only limit. Carter and his wife, Lillian, co-founded the Vienna Friends of the Library in their living room in 1958. Their effort helped establish the Patrick Henry Library in 1962 as an integrated library. The book "Desegregation in Northern Virginia Libraries" written by Fairfax County Public Library Virginia Room staff members Chris Barbuschak and Suzanne LaPierre mentions the Carter family's contributions to libraries in Vienna and Fairfax County.

Members of the Carter family expressed support for the renaming.

“The Carter Family is grateful that we are being commemorated and honored for the hard work that went into the integration of the Patrick Henry Library due to the dedication of the Friends of the Library," said Dee Dee Carter. "The establishment of the Friends group helped solidify that all Vienna citizens were entitled to read and check out books no matter the race, religion or color of the recipients."

In a letter to the board, Dee Dee Carter said the Vienna Friends of the Library was established after an incident involving checked out books from the whites-only library. When a white woman checked out books for Carter's cousins from Vienna Town Library in the 1950s, the library board came to their home and took the books back. A group of residents came together to form the library friends group and made Kenton Kilmer, the son of poet Joyce Kilmer, the chairman.

"Can you imagine being a black child in the 1940’s and 1950’s in which your parents paid taxes to support the library in Fairfax County and you still could not use it?" Carter wrote. "Just think we are only a half-century away from his incident. My cousins were perturbed, upset, and disappointed that this happened in the town they lived and supported."

Carter said her cousin Sharon Honesty was the first African American to check out books from the Patrick Henry Library opened in the Vienna Shopping Center in 1962. Carter and her siblings would also go to that library to check out books.

The Carters who helped establish the integrated library have two grandsons still living in the DC area as well as other relatives. Carter said the approval of the new library name is "making a statement that today's library is for everyone.

“The Library Board is grateful that we are part of communities where people speak up and share their histories, stories that allow us to grow and learn from the past," said Board of Trustees Chairman Brian Engler in a statement. "Naming the new facility the Vienna-Carter Library allows us to show our commitment to equitable access for everyone, from the past and hopefully long into the future."

The current Patrick Henry Library building opened in 1971 and is being planned for renovations. A bond referendum approved by Fairfax County voters in 2020 provided funding to rebuild the library on the site. Fairfax County is working with the Town of Vienna to also provide a shared parking garage for library visitors and town use. The project is in the design phase, and construction could begin in fall 2024. The expected opening of the new library is fall 2026. A temporary library opening during construction will maintain the current Patrick Henry Library name.