Joseph Tinner
The small community of Tinner Hill was developed by Black stone mason Charles Tinner and his wife Mary Elizabeth in the late 1800s. He subdivided the land, once part of tobacco plantation, into 10 home lots, one for each of his children.
In 1915, a son, Joseph Tinner, joined with neighbor Dr. E. B. Henderson and others to protest a proposed city segregation ordinance that would have forced Black residents to sell their homes and move to one part of town, much like Nazis would do just a few years later in Europe. They formed a group they called the Colored Citizens Protective League, which in 1918 became the first rural branch of the NAACP.
Joseph B. Tinner was especially known throughout the area as the most respected and sought-after stonemason in the region. While many of his monuments and buildings were built to last hundreds of years, they were all destroyed, mostly in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, and replaced with inferior, poorly built structures, designed to last only a few decades. All that remains of his life as a stonemason are the foundations of many elegant homes, a few fireplaces and chimneys, and some pictures of his magnificent monuments.
Tinner was a deeply religious man (Methodist), strong, and bore a confidence that came from a supportive extended family. He was widely recognized as a leader of people and a powerful speaker. It was said that whenever he spoke, people stopped to listen.
His beliefs on civil rights and his conviction about fairness and equality were well-known. In 1915, when the Falls Church Town Council voted to segregate the area and restrict land-ownership rights of African-Americans, Mr. Tinner was immediately elected as the leader of the group to respond. Minutes of the first and ensuing meetings indicate that Tinner tirelessly spoke before Council, church groups, and other organizations throughout Northern Virginia. He was both the voice and the "presence" for the rights of African-Americans. His leadership in civil rights continued up to his early death in 1928.
Little is known of this great man who stepped forward and made himself the target for white supremacists from both the Ku Klux Klan and the ruling Town Council. It is a goal of the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation to seek further information.
Joseph Tinner has been honored by the Fairfax Branch of the NAACP, and a plaque honoring him and his work sits at the base of the Tinner Hill Monument.