My Halls Hill Family: More Than A Neighborhood is about a community located on the north side of Arlington County, Virginia. The people who grew up there remember it as a special place that was more than a neighborhood. The community was built on faith, hard work and a spirit of gratitude. They also had fun and knew how to party, but understood how important education was to achieving the dreams and goals for their families.

The community got its start in the mid-1800’s when 327 acres of land was purchased by Bazil Hall for a plantation. Following the Civil War, the neighborhood became 100% African American. Many of the residents were descendants of slaves. It was walled off and fenced in by developers with the permission of the County Government from the early 1900’s until the 1960’s. Despite enduring discriminated from government Jim Crow laws, segregated schools and few services, the community and its people thrived.

My Halls Hill Family tells just a few of the stories of the neighborhood and how my family came to live there and raise their family from the mid-1800’s to the 1960’s. The community was unique in some ways and accomplished some historic events and institutions. The purpose of this book is to save these stories and to inspire others in similar communities to save their community and family stories, too.