A later artist’s rendition of Crandal Mackey’s raid on Rosslyn. This painting hangs in the Virginia Room at the Central Library. The depiction is hagiographic, cartoonish, and inaccurate, but indicates the significance of the event in Arlington’s history. Image used with permission of Arlington Library. “Lyon’s Legacy” is a limited-run opinion column on the history of housing in Arlington. A version of this article first appeared in ARLnow. Before 1900, the population of Arlington County was nearly 40% African-American. By 1950, it was less than 5%. Today, the number is still less than 10%. So what happened? Image by the author.