Alma Amaker remembers James Lee Elementary School when it marked progress for equality in education for Black children in Fairfax County.

Amaker was a fourth grader when James Lee, located at 2855 Annandale Rd. in Falls Church, opened it doors as a segregated elementary school in February of 1948. To Amaker, it was a huge step up from the nearby Falls Church Colored School –the two-room schoolhouse with no indoor plumbing she had been attending.

“I remember the smell of the brand-new school,” said Amaker, now 85. "There were new desks, new chairs and new books. I still get that smell when I go to the bookstore now. The smell of the new James Lee School flashes in my mind.”

All these years later, James Lee, with many additions and renovations, is now a Fairfax County NCS Community Center. And Amaker is here again – working at the front desk where she is a friendly face for the patrons coming to the center. She is a wealth of knowledge about James Lee Community Center AND the old James Lee School.

“I’ve been around a long time,” she says with a laugh. “Forever.”

Amaker went from James Lee School to Dunbar High in the District as there were no high schools for Black teens in Fairfax County at that time. After graduating from Virginia State University in Petersburg, she taught English in Fairfax County Public Schools for more than 50 years. She says she was inspired by “Miss Nellie,” one of her early teachers at James Lee.

James Lee School operated as a school until June 1966, a year after Fairfax County desegregated its schools. As much as Amaker loved her time there, she said “it was like a slap in the face” to see the school closed rather than have children of all races attending.

“It was good enough when Black kids went there, but not for white kids?” she questioned.

By the 1970s, James Lee became a recreation center, where Amaker’s two children spent lots of time. It was among the few places in the area where Black teens were welcome, she said.

“My two children, along with their cousins, would come home from school, change clothes, do their homework and then they were off to James Lee,” Amaker said. “It was a safe haven for children.”

James Lee Community Center is named for James Edward Lee, a Black man born free in 1839, who purchased the land where the center sits. In 1945, James Lee’s son, Edward, sold a portion of the original property to the Fairfax County School Board to build a school for Black children. When completed, it was the first Black school with indoor plumbing, heating, a classroom for each grade, a cafeteria and auditorium, according to a historical marker placed there in 2021.

Today, it is a hub of activity with a senior center, gym, theater, teen center, technology program and more. Amaker says she loves working there two days a week, greeting people of all ages, cultures and races as they come to the front desk. She is also involved with several center activities, including leading an afterschool reading group for children.

“I love it here,” said Amaker, who read a poem, “Lord! Why Did You Make Me Black?”, by RuNett Nia Ebo at James Lee's Black History Month program earlier in February.