Fred Washington remembers a different Herndon.
A Herndon where ordinances forbade blacks to own property in town.
A Herndon where blacks were bussed to Manassas to attend school.
A Herndon where blacks had to establish a neighborhood outside of recognized town limits to be a part of a community.
"I never went inside of a library until I went to Manassas for high school," said the 79-year-old Herndon native. "I am one of the few that has a history of segregation here, who is still living."
But, Washington points out, that was then.
"Life here in Herndon now is a far cry from what it was when I grew up," he said. "I love it back here."
BORN AND RAISED in a house his grandfather built in 1891 off of Grove Street — the house has since been torn down — Washington said they were one of the only black families to own property recognized by the town.
"Herndon, it had an ordinance and it was passed in 1923 where blacks that owned property were grandfathered in," said Washington about how his family was able to maintain ownership of their property in town. "But after 1923 they couldn't own property. Blacks couldn't buy, sell or rent property in Herndon — it was all a part of the Jim Crow laws."
Because of this, Washington said the black community lived and socialized in two exclusive areas called Cooktown and Old Grove.
"Cooktown was at the end of Monroe Street, but they never included it as a part of Herndon," he said. "There was no entertainment for blacks in Herndon, no theater, nothing. Everything we did for our social life we had to do [in Cooktown and Old Grove]."
Although they were discriminated against by the town, Washington said he still has fond memories of growing up with his four brothers and one sister.
"It wasn't easy, but it was a way of life," he said.
ONE MEMORY WASHINGTON has is walking — nickel in hand — with his brothers to one of the three grocery stores in town to do "after-hours" shopping.
"[The owner] knew us, so we would camp out at the back entrance of the store until it closed for the night," he said, explaining because the store threw away perishables the owner would let them pay 5 cents to fill their bags with ripe fruit and broken cookies.
"We'd go home happy and sit around and eat good," he said laughing.
As a teenager in the early 1940s, Washington became wholly cognizant of his surroundings and realized — with the encouragement of his mother — he could achieve more outside of Herndon.
"If we wanted an ice cream cone we had to stand at the back door and ask, or beg," he said. "I knew nothing about integration from living here, that was not happening in Herndon."
Because of Herndon's unhurried pace to integrate, Washington left.
"I hated it," he said. "When I got out of school I left."
AFTER SERVING in a segregated Army Air Corps for two years, Washington took advantage of a G.I. Bill at the time that allowed him to get a better education.
In 1950 he married his late wife, Mary Lucille White-Washington, a Floris native, and the two began a life full of travel thanks to his job as an aviation engineer with the airline industry.
"We wanted change and opportunity," he said. "We knew opportunity would not be here."
Washington said they moved to Cleveland in 1953 and then St. Petersburg, Fla. in 1962 where their son and daughter attended the state's first integrated schools.
"They were never exposed to segregation like I was, so I wanted to give them the opportunity," said Washington, adding he was the first black person to work at his company's St. Petersburg plant.
Initially, he said, they tried to protect their children from some of the discrimination.
"How do you tell a child who's 8 or 9 years old, without instilling hatred in their heart, that we can't go to McDonald's because we're black?" he asked.
While in Florida, Washington said he and his wife worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr., peacefully picketing theater lines and other segregated establishments.
"The life was not beautiful, it wasn't pretty, you were spit at and cursed upon," he said. "But, you smile, wipe it off and keep going."
Washington tried to reflect his anti-violence attitude onto his children.
"I don't hold grudges about anything," he said. "I've learned over the years, when you're the first to do something you can't get your head down."
In 1966 Washington was transferred to be the first black engineer to work at his company's California plant.
During that time Washington said his family traveled as far as a tank of gas could get them in each direction, trying to experience all they could of the country. They also visited family in the east.
It wasn't until 1992 that he moved back to Reston, after retiring and traveling the world.
In the late '90s Washington moved into the basement of his daughter's house. She moved to Herndon to teach elementary school.
Now Washington enjoys his retirement in the town he grew up in, reflecting on its history, but not dwelling on the past.
"My daughter says to me [Herndon] is unusual compared to other towns," he said about its current population. "But, it's unusual for me because I have seen the change that's taken place."
"You hate every minute of what you went through," he said. "But we survived."