The historically Black neighborhood has deep ties to local civil rights history.
Founded by freed enslaved people in the 1840s, the neighborhood predates the better-known Freedman’s Village on what is now Arlington National Cemetery grounds. It has been home to African American figures including Grammy-winning singer and songwriter Roberta Flack, who topped the charts with “Killing Me Softly with His Song” in 1973; and community activist John Robinson Jr., who for a time worked directly with Martin Luther King Jr. King himself preached a sermon in Green Valley’s Lomax AME Zion Church in 1963, shortly before delivering his epochal “I Have a Dream” speech in D.C.
The 12-acre Jennie Dean Park is named for the formerly enslaved founder of the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth. Once a segregated site reserved for Black baseball teams, the park now has a “history walk” etched with a timeline of dates relevant to local Black history.
But as new homeowners enter the neighborhood and longtime residents depart or pass away, Green Valley’s local advocates continue to fight to preserve its identity. Portia Clark, who has lived in Green Valley since birth and now heads its civic association, was instrumental in the effort to have the neighborhood recognized by its historic name rather than Nauck, a name introduced in recognition of a White developer around the 1970s.
Though the neighborhood was formally recognized as Green Valley by Arlington County in 1970, “we're not out of the woods yet,” Clark said. She recently encountered a county resident survey that still had Nauck in the drop-down menu, and, even with extensive civic association input on the redesign of Jennie Dean Park, had to seek redress when a directional sign went up in the park pointing visitors to Green Valley.
“We had to remind them, you’re in Green Valley,” she said.
Struggle has always been part of Clark’s story in Green Valley — she had children who contended with the challenges of busing amid the desegregation of Drew Elementary School in the early 1970s — but so has family. Having rented various homes in the neighborhood previously, she and her husband purchased the home Clark still lives in with the help of a down payment assistance program in 1980. With so many local family ties, it never made sense to leave.
“My grandmother's house was on one corner; my aunt was down the street,” Clark said. “And everybody around knew everybody, because you were either related or friends.”
Kimberly Roberts, who was also born in the neighborhood, left Green Valley in the mid-1990s, but always hoped she’d find a way to return. In 2008, she purchased the duplex her grandmother still lived in and completed an extensive renovation. A former secretary for the Green Valley Civic Association, she celebrates the neighborhood’s history through participation in events such as the annual Green Valley Day at the Drew Community Center, which highlights the neighborhood’s story through presentations and musical performances.
“The neighborhood is changing quite a bit, and I guess it's changed drastically, actually,” Roberts said. “We try to make sure that we still leave a mark.”
Once known as one of Arlington’s last affordable neighborhoods, the values for Green Valley’s duplexes and single-family brick homes are climbing. Bounded by Walter Reed Drive to the west, South 16th Street to the north, the Army Navy Country Club and Interstate 395 to the east, and South Four Mile Run Drive to the south, the neighborhood had 14 homes sold in the last year, said Rana Smith, a local real estate agent and third-generation Arlington resident.
Smith, who helped to organize a 2022 neighborhood kickball tournament in Green Valley's John Robinson Jr. town square, said that while it's still possible to find below-market value homes requiring extensive work or renovation, as with Roberts' home, prices now tend to exclude legacy residents.
“You probably won't find people who lived there in the past purchasing” in Green Valley, Smith said. “You're going to find transplants.”
Of the homes sold in the last year, the lowest-priced was a snug 1,360-square foot single-family without updates for $582,000; the highest was a 20-year-old mini-mansion near the country club with five-and-a-half bedrooms and more than 5,000 square feet for $1.2 million. The two homes on the market now include a two-floor single-family home dating to 1939 with 1,896 square feet for just under $800,000; and a 1935 Cape Cod with updates over 1,795 square feet for just under $850,000.
While Green Valley’s residents are conscious of the divide between longtime residents and newcomers, touchpoints such as the community garden near the town square can bring the groups together. Managed by lifetime resident LaVerne Langhorne, the garden was started three years ago on a site that used to contain a vacant house, and now draws 30 to 40 volunteers annually, Langhorne said.
Kody Kight, who moved with his wife, Stef, to the neighborhood in 2020, has enjoyed finding a place in Green Valley through volunteering in the community garden and casual quality time with neighbors.
“I was really intimidated when we were first moving there, because I really got the vibe that this place had, unlike the rest of Arlington, not really changed,” Kight said. But, “unlike other places I’ve lived, everybody’s on their porch. If it’s a nice day, people are outside, and they’re engaging with one another. And you just start talking.”
Schools: Drew Elementary; Gunston Middle; Wakefield High
Transit: The 22A and 72 buses stop along South Four Mile Run Drive; the 23T bus serves South Kenmore Street. The Pentagon City Metro station is about three miles away.
