The Fairfax County Public Library Board of Trustees is considering changing Woodrow Wilson Library’s name to Culmore Community Library following “significant community input.”
Library Board of Trustees Chair Brian Engler said many community members in the Mason District, where the library is located, have testified during public comment periods in recent months that they want the name changed.
The board amended its policy in November 2023 regarding the naming of libraries, spaces and fixtures to state that “all new or renamed branch libraries shall be named for the geographical area in which they are located.”
The policy also says the board may consider renaming a library if a request “comes from and reflects the wishes of citizens within the library’s service area and if the benefits of the name change outweigh the costs such a name change could generate.”
According to the agenda packet for its March 13 meeting, the board received at least eight emails from community members requesting consideration of a renaming of Woodrow Wilson Library, which is located at 6101 Knollwood Drive in Bailey’s Crossroads.
Most of the emails cited Wilson’s views on race and segregation as justification for a renaming, arguing that they don’t reflect the values of Fairfax County or the library’s neighborhood.
“Woodrow Wilson held segregationist and racist views,” Carol Lewis wrote to the board in a Feb. 10 email. “…The WW Library is located in a very diverse neighborhood. The library staff there work hard to reflect that diversity and the needs of the community, but the name is not appropriate.”
Bailey’s Crossroads is home to 24,785 people, about 55% of whom are Black and/or Hispanic, according to Census data.
As president from 1913 to 1921, Wilson oversaw a re-segregation of the federal government, and he advocated for the “Lost Cause” myth that romanticized the Confederacy to the extent that his academic writing was quoted by the infamously racist film “Birth of a Nation,” which helped revive the Ku Klux Klan.
“Honoring a segregationist is not the message we want to send to the residents of the area and does not comply with the Fairfax County Library system’s first guiding principle, to reflect and celebrate our diverse communities,” Judith Kaufmann wrote on Feb. 13.
Initially opened as a storefront in the Culmore Shopping Center in 1961, a permanent Woodrow Wilson Library opened at its current location in 1967, according to a report presented to the board on June 12. At the time, the FCPL board’s policy was to name all libraries after famous, dead Virginians, though Wilson has no direct local connection.
Further discussion is planned for July 10 at 7 p.m., which may or may not lead to a final vote, according to Engler. He said there’s no requirement for a public hearing or community input session, but the board is in contact with Mason District Supervisor Andres Jimenez regarding the renaming efforts.
Engler said there has not been any consideration of when a name change, if approved, would take effect at this time.
The report, which was compiled by Virginia Room historians, proposes “Culmore Community Library” as a potential new name to reflect the facility’s location. The neighborhood got its name from an apartment complex built in 1947 by real estate developer John Campbell, who hailed from Culmore village in Londonderry, Ireland.
Before the library was dedicated to Woodrow Wilson on Jan. 2, 1967, it was referred to as the Culmore-Bailey’s Crossroads Library or Culmore-Bailey’s Library, the report states.
The library could get be the second one approved for a name change this year after Board of Trustees voted to rename Vienna’s Patrick Henry Library as the Vienna-Carter Library in honor of a local couple who advocated for the facility to be integrated when it opened in 1962.
