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A one-mile walking tour through Old Town will revisit key chapters of Alexandria’s LGBTQ+ history, including a landmark anti-discrimination measure, a challenge to Virginia’s alcohol regulations and the local response to the AIDS crisis.
The Alexandria Historical Society will hold the tour at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 29, 2025. The route begins at the Torpedo Factory Art Center and follows historic brick sidewalks through sites connected to activism and community life from the 1970s through the 1990s.
George Mason University graduate students who received the society’s 2024 AHS Golden Grant will lead the event.
Among the stops is the former French Quarter Café, now Don Taco. One of Northern Virginia’s earliest known gay bars, the café was owned by people who played a pivotal role in a 1991 court case that overturned a 1956 Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control regulation barring service to “homosexuals.”
The tour will also visit Alexandria City Hall, where the City Council amended the local human rights ordinance in 1988 to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. It was the first such action in Virginia.
At the Torpedo Factory, participants will learn how artists observed the 1993 Day Without Art by covering the space in black bunting to mourn people who died of AIDS.
Detailed meeting instructions will be emailed to registered participants one day before the tour. Tickets cost $20 for Alexandria Historical Society members and $25 for non-members.
The walk is part of a larger Golden Grant-funded initiative that also includes a digital Story Map, a public lecture and an application for a historical marker recognizing Alexandria’s LGBTQ+ legacy.