Buckingham Village

When we pulled into the North George Mason Drive cul de sac on that fall day, I knew I was in the right place. The paths and grassy yard were coated with wet and still golden oak leaves, the air held a lovely chill. After two days in our Chevette traveling from Houston, I knew, at 11, that this was the real beginning for me. I might seem easily impressed, but, for one, I don't think I had seen fall leaves before. And my wonder did not soon cease.

Obviously, Buckingham was not then or now some kind of utopia. There was a bit of filth in the corners, the playgrounds were not kept up, and some people made some money way off on the side. Our next door neighbors at one point had an seriously unusual amount of visitors, before they were evicted. But this was and is a community of families. People who drove taxis, did construction, bussed tables, and their children, living a dream in a unique place. People from East Africa, South Asia, Latin American, everywhere, lived in the community.

The years have erased any doubt that this was in fact a real beginning. I'm certain that without the opportunity to live in a safe, affordable and human environment, and the chance to go to Arlington Country public schools that went with it, I wouldn't have the luxury of this vantage to look back on it. Moving to Buckingham Village gave me the ability to go eventually to the fantastic W-L High School, and then to U.Va with a scholarship. For people like my mom and I, there was no similar opportunity in this area. I am proud to see how Arlington has grown in wealth and status, but I cringe to think this same chance is passing away for working class kids to station more BMW battalions in our borders.

This opportunity is exactly what Presdent Franklin D. Roosevelt's Committee for Economic Recovery had in mind for our predecessors when Buckingham Village was built almost 70 years ago. It was built to provide affordable housing for families, especially those pouring into the Washington area to support the war effort. It was a moment in history when Americans realized that the market, left to its own devices, ground too many people to dust. It was the time that developed the concept of workers' rights, a minimum wage, welfare and unions. Its fitting in the worst way that Buckingham is whittled away to nothing as its era's other achievements are also discarded in pursuit of progress. Its helpful that Bloggers and activists like the Buckingham Herald Tribblog are trying to support the community and keep the county true to values other than property values.

Way back in the early nineties, my mom, Sheila Charles, worked on the Buckingham Village Tenant's Association to help make the community a better place to live. Doris Everhart was the president of the association and she worked tirelessly to get as much of the property as possible the protection of historical property status. This past Christmas I took my visiting mom to see the bare swatch of land at George Mason and Henderson Dr. and that, sadly, some of that work was in vain. But I think that their concern was prescient, and their work ultimately valuable. I've asked my mom to unbox some some of the records and documents she has kept about the Tenants' Association's work to help preserve Buckingham. I will be sharing some of that information in a later post.