page_title: Arlington County, Virginia
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Arlington County, Virginia / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: The former county seal of Arlington County, Virginia, used from June 6, 1983 to May 8, 2007.
context_page_description: Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia, often referred to simply as Arlington or Arlington, Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county is coterminous with the U.S. Census Bureau's census-designated place of Arlington. Arlington is considered to be the second-largest "principal city" of the Washington metropolitan area.
  In 2019, the county's population was estimated at 236,842, making Arlington the sixth-largest county in Virginia by population; if it were incorporated as a city, Arlington would be the fourth most-populous city in the state. With a land area of 26 square miles, Arlington is the geographically smallest self-governing county in the U.S., and by reason of state law regarding population density, it has no incorporated towns within its borders. It is the 5th highest-income county in the U.S. by median family income.
  Arlington is home to the Pentagon, Reagan National Airport, and Arlington National Cemetery.
context_section_description: In 1920, the Virginia legislature renamed the area Arlington County to avoid confusion with the City of Alexandria which had become an independent city in 1870 under the new Virginia Constitution adopted after the Civil War.
  In the 1930s, Hoover Field was established on the present site of the Pentagon; in that decade, Buckingham, Colonial Village, and other apartment communities also opened. World War II brought a boom to the county, but one that could not be met by new construction due to rationing imposed by the war effort.
  In October 1942, not a single rental unit was available in the county. On October 1, 1949 the University of Virginia in Charlottesville created an extension center in the county named Northern Virginia University Center of the University of Virginia. This campus was subsequently renamed University College, then the Northern Virginia Branch of the University of Virginia, thereafter, the George Mason College of the University of Virginia, until it was finally designated George Mason University, which it remains today. The Henry G. Shirley Highway (now Interstate 395) was constructed during World War II, along with adjacent developments such as Shirlington, Fairlington, and Parkfairfax.
  In February 1959, Arlington County Schools desegregated racially at Stratford Junior High School (now H-B Woodlawn) with the admission of black pupils Donald Deskins, Michael Jones, Lance Newman, and Gloria Thompson. The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas had struck down the previous ruling on racial segregation Plessy v. Ferguson that held that facilities could be racially "separate but equal." Brown v. Board of Education ruled that "racially separate educational facilities were inherently unequal." The elected Arlington County School Board presumed that the state would defer to localities and in January 1956 announced plans to integrate Arlington schools. The state responded by suspending the county's right to an elected school board. The Arlington County Board, the ruling body for the county, appointed conservatives to the school board and blocked plans for desegregation. Lawyers for the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed suit on behalf of a group of parents of both white and black students to end segregation. Black pupils were still denied admission to white schools, but the lawsuit went before the U.S. District Court, which ruled that Arlington schools were to be desegregated by the 1958–59 academic year. In January 1959 both the U.S. District Court and the Virginia Supreme Court had ruled against Virginia's massive resistance movement, which opposed racial integration. The Arlington County Central Library's collections include written materials as well as accounts in its Oral History Project of the desegregation struggle in the county.
  Arlington during the 1960s was undergoing tremendous change after the huge influx of newcomers in the 1950s. M.T. Broyhill & Sons Corporation was at the forefront of building the new communities for these newcomers, which would lead to the election of Joel Broyhill as the representative of Virginia's 10th congressional district for 11 terms. The old commercial districts did not have ample off-street parking and many shoppers were taking their business to new commercial centers, such as Parkington and Seven Corners. Suburbs further out in Virginia and Maryland were expanding, and Arlington's main commercial center in Clarendon was declining, similar to what happened in other downtown centers. With the growth of these other suburbs, some planners and politicians pushed for highway expansion. The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 would have enabled that expansion in Arlington. However, the administrator of the National Capital Transportation Agency, economist C. Darwin Stolzenbach, saw the benefits of rapid transit for the region and oversaw plans for a below ground rapid transit system, now the Washington Metro, which included two lines in Arlington. Initial plans called for what 
caption: The former Arlington County seal, used from June 1983 to May 2007
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