If Duke Street could talk, the stories it could tell. The Franklin and Armfield Slave Pen at 1315 Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia, was one of the largest slave trading companies in America.
Founded in 1749, Alexandria has the third oldest historic district in the U.S. The past is ever-present in this town on the Potomac River just 5 miles south of Washington, D.C. There is a juxtaposition of old and new. The late-18th- and 19th-century architecture provides character and charm alongside what today is hipster central with restaurants, cafés, bars, boutiques, and art galleries.
While Alexandria will celebrate Juneteenth — which commemorates the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned that the Emancipation Proclamation freed them 2 years earlier — with outdoor concerts, lectures, poetry readings, and other festivities, you’ll want to explore the town’s Black history any time of year. For sure, it’s a complex story. To begin putting the pieces together, here are a few places to visit.
1. Freedom House Museum
The former slave pen at 1315 Duke Street is the Freedom House Museum and a National Historic Landmark. Between 1828 and 1861, thousands of Black people were trafficked at the site and forced into slave markets in the South. The museum shines a light on the slave trade and tells the stories of the enslaved as well as free Blacks who lived in Alexandria. The museum reopened in spring of 2022 with new exhibits not only showcasing Alexandria’s past but the Black experience throughout the country.
2. Contrabands And Freedman Cemetery And Memorial
This landmark on 1001 South Washington Street is where more than 1,700 African American people who fled the horrors of slavery to find refuge in Alexandria during the Civil War were buried. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a part of the African American Civil Rights Network.
3. Alexandria Library
What today is the Barrett Branch Library was once the Alexandria Library, where one of the nation’s first sit-ins took place on August 21, 1939. Back then, the library was for whites only. One by one, a group of young Black men asked to register for a library card and when they were denied, they picked up a book, sat down at a table, and read. They were arrested for disorderly conduct. Furor over the incident sparked change. The Library Board would go on to approve the construction of the Robert H. Robinson Library with funding for books and an African American librarian was hired.
4. Alfred Street Baptist Church
Church is the heart of the African American community. Since the early 19th century, Alfred Street Baptist Church has played a pivotal role in Alexandria. It is the oldest African American congregation in town. By 1820, the church’s influence wasn’t only on the spiritual side, but it started an educational branch for Black children and adults.
5. Edmonson Sisters Statue
Alexandria has its share of heroines. Two of them were Mary and Emily Edmonson, teenagers who, along with dozens of others, were unsuccessful in their attempt to escape slavery from Washington, D.C. via the Pearl schooner. They were captured and held in the Bruin Slave Jail in Alexandria. The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, who published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, later wrote about their efforts to free Mary and Emily. The sisters became abolitionists and worked with Frederick Douglass. Erik Blome’s statue is a tribute to them.
6. Alexandria Archaeology Museum
You’ll want to check out a new addition to the museum’s permanent collection, the Lee Street Site exhibit. It tells the stories of free and enslaved African Americans in Alexandria with the help of archaeological finds from the city’s waterfront, like ships and the remains of businesses and homes.
7. Waterfront Public Art Installation
On Old Town Alexandria’s Waterfront until November, you can view the temporary installation Two Boxes of Oranges and Admonia Jackson by Nina Cooke John. The work was inspired by ships discovered on the waterfront in 2015 and 2018. It forms an abstracted ship’s hull with steel that rises and bends. Stand in the space and think of how it might have felt to be an enslaved person being carried like cargo.
8. African American Heritage Trails
The African American Heritage Trail is a self-guided tour. There is the Northern Waterfront Trail and the new Southern Waterfront Trail; you can do one or both if you have time. The trails are a walk down memory lane and span the African American experience over several centuries. The tales are told through online StoryMaps. Pull them up on your smartphone as you walk along the trail, where you’ll see sites like the Freedman Cemetery and Hyati — an African American neighborhood — among other sites.
9. Alexandria Black History Museum
You’ll get a three-for-one with a stop here: the museum, the Watson Reading Room, and the Alexandria African American Heritage Park. Explore more than 3,000 items documenting African American history, including books, periodicals, dissertations, and theses. With its sculptures and the much talked about group of bronze trees called Truths That Rise From the Roots Remembered, the heritage park acknowledges the contributions of African Americans to Alexandria. Names of African Americans and sites significant to them are carved on the sculpture. The park was created on Alexandria’s oldest independent African American burial ground, the Black Baptist Cemetery, which dates back to the 19th century.
The recently reopened museum showcases a new exhibit, Preserving their Names: The Black Lives Remembered Collection, featuring digital images and artifacts donated from the community in the D.C. region following the murder of George Floyd. The updated Before the Spirits are Swept Away exhibition highlights Sherry Zvares Sanabria’s paintings of the sites where enslaved individuals lived and worked. The museum has a new children’s area that has age-appropriate educational activities for them that are likely to spark a family discussion.
10. Manumission Tour Company
If you want to take guided tours, Manumission offers several. The 90-minute walking tour, Freedom’s Fight in Alexandria, takes you through Old Town and includes stories of runaway slaves, early abolitionists, and others. Duke Street Black History is a 90-minute walk along the Duke Street corridor in Old Town, where you’ll see the former Bruin Slave Jail, Shiloh Baptist Church, and Alexandria National Cemetery among others.
The company’s other 90-minute walking tour is Still’s Underground Railroad along the downtown King Street corridor. It’s based on the 1872 book The Underground Railroad by abolitionist William Still. You’ll make stops at sites mentioned in the book and hear about the fugitives’ journey and how the Underground Railroad operated. If you would rather ride than walk, there’s a bus tour, Black History in Alexandria, a 2-hour trip that includes many sites like the Freedom House Museum, Alfred Street Baptist Church, and Contrabands and Freedman Cemetery.
11. African American Hall Of Fame
Located in the Charles Houston Recreation Center, the African American Hall of Fame’s exhibits celebrate the achievements of Alexandria’s African Americans who excelled in education, business, medicine, politics, sports, religion, and literature. There’s a statue of Earl Lloyd, the first Black athlete to play in the NBA, that was installed to pay homage to the 100th anniversary of Parker-Gray High School — the city’s African American public high school during segregation.
12. Fort Ward Museum And Historic Site
This was one of the largest Union forts during the Civil War. It protected Alexandria and Washington, D.C. Following the war, a group of formerly enslaved African Americans bought the land and set up their own community called “The Fort.” For a time, the area thrived as people built homes, churches, and schools. The city of Alexandria made plans to establish Fort Ward Park and restore it for the Civil War Centennial. The African American presence evaporated as people were displaced, buildings were demolished, and burial sites were lost. Today, you can see a bit of what was once among remnants, like the foundations of homes and some grave sites. The Oakland Baptist Church on King Street is one of the remaining landmarks from that era.
