Evelyn Syphax
Evelyn Syphax devoted much of her time to education. She served as chairman of the Arlington School Board and led a successful overhaul of the county’s desegregation plan to reduce long bus rides for minority students.
Evelyn Reid Syphax was a former Arlington Public Schools Educator and a long-time resident of Arlington, Virginia. She served extensively on various elected and appointed boards for schools and civic and community organizations. She was born in Lynchburg, Va., and graduated from Virginia Union University. She received a master’s in early childhood education from New York University.
She moved to Arlington in 1951 and received a master’s in Early Childhood Education from New York University in 1954. She was a language arts and reading specialist within the Arlington Public Schools system for over 20 years at several schools, including Hoffman-Boston in Penrose.
Mrs. Syphax devoted much of her time to education. She served as chairman of the Arlington School Board and led a successful overhaul of the county’s desegregation plan to reduce long bus rides for minority students. While teaching at Langston Elementary School, she met Archie Douglas Syphax, one of Arlington County’s first paid African American firefighters. Evelyn and Archie married in 1956 and raised two sons, Archie Douglas (“Doug”) Syphax, Jr., and Craig Custis Syphax.
Mrs. Syphax spearheaded programs that provided mentoring and counseling to help underachieving children improve their communication skills. She served on the Virginia Advisory Council, The Vocational Education on the Committee to Re-evaluate State Government. She once served as president of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, which she helped organize; president of the Arlington Historical Society; and chairman of the Northern Virginia United Negro College Fund.
Mrs. Syphax was known principally for her spirited volunteer work. She raised funds for the Arlington Cultural Arts Center and, in 1994, founded the Black Heritage Museum, which honors the history of African Americans in Arlington. Mrs. Syphax was also a businesswoman who owned and served as director of the Early Childhood Development Center, a Montessori school in Arlington, from 1963 to 1987. For shorter periods, she ran a private residential center for senior citizens and owned a thrift shop. She received many honors, including the 1981 Arlington Woman of the Year from the Interservice Club Council.
In 1992, the Arlington County Commission on the Status of Women honored her as a Notable Woman of Arlington. Mrs. Syphax taught in the Arlington public schools in the 1950s, a decade when racial segregation was still the rule in the state’s education system. She recalled that era for a Washington Post reporter in a 1996 story: “The need to end racial separation was clear to her in many ways, starting with her class size of 39 students. ‘All the books were discards from the white schools. All the black teachers were busy taping them up,’ she said. ‘The schools were practically crumbling around us in the black schools.’ “ Arlington tried to integrate its schools quickly but was ordered by the state to close its schools rather than integrate. A court ruling resulted in a victory for Arlington integration.
On Feb. 2, 1959, four black students entered Arlington’s Stratford Junior High School, making it the first integrated public school in Virginia. Mrs. Syphax had taught all four students as their third-grade teacher at Langston Elementary School. In 2006, the Arlington school board voted unanimously to name Arlington’s education center in honor of Evelyn Reid Syphax.
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