Alexandria Featured on Book TV and American History TV

Alexandria’s history and literary culture will be featured Saturday and Sunday on Book TV and American History TV on C-SPAN2 and C-SPAN3.

Saturday’s Book TV block, which begins at noon on C-SPAN2, features interviews with authors of several books about Alexandria.

Michael Lee Pope, a local reporter, discusses his two books—“The Hidden History of Alexandria, DC” and “Shotgun Justice: One Prosecutor’s Crusade Against Crime and Corruption in Alexandria and Arlington.”

While discussing “Hidden History,” Pope visits Jones Point, a slave pen located in the basement of the current home of the Northern Virginia Urban League in Old Town and the site of a famous 1826 duel between U.S. Secretary of State Henry Clay and Virginia Senator John Randolph.  

In another segment, Pope discusses Crandal Mackey, the subject of “Shotgun Justice.” Elected commonwealth’s attorney in 1903, Mackey fought to clean up Alexandria and Arlington and was responsible for shutting down St. Asaph Racetrack in what is currently Del Ray.

Other Book TV segments include a discussion with Amy Bertsch, currently the public information officer with the Alexandria Sheriff’s Office, about her book entitled “The History of the Alexandria Police Department”; author Denver Brussman discussing his “The Evil Necessity-British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World”; a tour of Carlyle House, Gadsby’s Tavern and Christ Church in Old Town with "Walking With Washington" author Bob Madison, and a discussion of a 1939 sit-in at the Alexandria Library, which resulted in the construction of the Robert Robinson Library for African Americans in 1940.

Alexandria will again be featured during a block of American History TV programming beginning at 5 p.m. Sunday on C-SPAN3. Segments include tours of Fort Ward, the Alexandria Archaeology Museum, Lee Fendall House, the George Washington Masonic Memorial, the Lyceum, Carlyle House, Gadsby’s Tavern and Christ Church and Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery.

Segments from Book TV and American History TV will also be sprinkled throughout C-SPAN2 and C-SPAN3 programming on both Saturday and Sunday.

You can also watch many of the segments here. They are attached as YouTube videos on the right.