The Story
Merrifield, Virginia, home of the Mosaic District, once housed Black communities whose roots trace back to the post-Civil War years.
The area was originally called Mills Crossing. Its current name referenced the town's black postmaster, George Merrifield.
After emancipation, local landowners sold property to formerly enslaved Black people.
By the late 1800s, Merrifield had a Black elementary school on Porter Road. However, Fairfax County didn't have a Black high school. Students who wanted to continue their education had to travel to Washington, D.C. or Manassas.
That changed in 1954, when Fairfax County opened Luther Jackson High School in Merrifield, its first and only high school for Black students.
In 1965, Fairfax County's schools were integrated, and Luther Jackson closed as a high school. The building became an intermediate school and is still used today.
But integration wasn't the only thing changing Merrifield. The county was rapidly suburbanizing, and some of the Black communities that had existed here for generations were displaced.
One example was The Pines, a Black community near Merrifield. In the 1960s, Fairfax County sought the land for a proposed school and used eminent domain to acquire property from residents. Families were forced to leave.
And the remarkable part is that the school was never built. The land eventually became part of Pine Ridge Park.