Black Historic Sites -- Alexandria, Virginia
"UPTOWN" Area -- See Tour Map at Bottom of This Page -- Alexandria Black History Museum
638 North Alfred Street, Alexandria, Virginia
This is one of six museums under the Office of Historic Alexandria, City of Alexandria. The building that houses the Museum was constructed in 1940 as the Robert H. Robinson Library.
The City built the Robinson Library as a result of a peaceful sit-in that took place in 1939 at the Alexandria Library on Queen Street. Five young African American men were arrested for refusing to leave a segregated, white only library.
The Robinson Library was the first public library to serve the African American population of Alexandria. With desegregation in the 1960s, the building was converted to use for community-oriented programs.
In 1983, the Alumni Association of Parker-Gray School and the Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage, Inc. reopened the building as the Alexandria Black History Resource Center. The Center id now called the Alexandria Black History Museum.
Parker-Gray School
900 Wythe Street, Alexandria
Parker -Gray School
This former school site is directly across the street from the Alexandria Black History Museum. The Parker-Gray School opened in 1920 providing an education for African American boys and girls in first through eighth grade.
Parker-Gray's first four-year high school class graduated in 1936. In 1950, because of increased enrollment, a new school was built at 1207 Madison Street to house ParkerGray High school. In honor of the hard work and dedication of NAACP lawyer, Charles Houston, the school that remained on Wythe Street was renamed Charles Houston Elementary School.
The school was named for late educators John Parker, Principal of the Snowden School for Boys, and Sarah Gray, Principal of the Hallowell School for Girls. For many years, African American students had to travel to Washington, D.C. to receive an education beyond the eighth grade.
As a result of integration, Parker-Gray High School was phased out and became a middle school from 1965 to 1979. The property was sold and a portion of the funds was used by the City of Alexandria to renovate and extend the Alexandria Black History Resource Center.
During the desegregating years, Charles Houston Elementary School closed. It eventually burned down. This site is now home to the Charles Houston Recreation Center.
Follow this Self-guided Tour Route"
From Alexandria Black History Museum, go south on Alfred Street, then turn left on Queen Street to Royal StreetPoints of interest on your route:
People's Flower Shop
509 North Alfred Street, Alexandria
The first African American florist in Alexandria.
901 Princess Street - brick building
Former office of Samuel W. Tucker, who represented the 1939 sit-down strike participants. In 2000, Samuel W. Tucker Elementary School was named for him.
Meade Memorial Episcopal Church
322 North Alfred Street, Alexandria
Organized by Christ Church as a mission project in 1869.
717 Queen Street, Alexandria
Site of August 21, 1939 Alexandria Library sit-down strike
Continue Queen Street, go right on Royal Street, then left on King Street
August 21, 1939 Library
sit-down strikeMarket Square
300 block of King Street
Since the city's founding in 1749, this square has been the center of activity. The Fairfax County Courthouse was located here in the middle l700s. Local farmers often came to the square to sell produce.
Slave exporters in Alexandria were leaders in the long distance slave trade and the square was used as a slave market. In February, 1791, the black astronomer, mathematician, and surveyor Benjamin Banneker helped survey the area south of here when Alexandria became a part of the District of Columbia.Continue King St. to right on Fairfax St., right on Duke St. to middle of the block
Church Alley
South side of Duke Street, between Royal and Fairfax Streets, Alexandria
The First Methodist Episcopal Church was located in this alley. This was one of the first churches where African Americans were allowed to worship with the white congregation. Many of the African American worshipers came from the nearby community of Hayti.
Continue Duke Street, turn left on Royal Street to the northwest corner of Wolfe Street.
"HAYTI" area
400 block of South Royal Street, Alexandria
This community was probably named for the country of Haiti (Hayti was an earlier name for Haiti). The residents on the block were free blacks and whites. Sometimes enslaved people lived with free black families.
The house at 404 South Royal Street was the home of George Seaton, a free black master carpenter, who became a member of the City Council and State Legislature in the 1870s. He was responsible for constructing the first public schools for African American students, the Snowden School for Boys and the Hallowell School for Girls. Turn right on Wolfe Street to the northeast corner of Wolfe and St. Asaph Streets
.
George L. Seaton House
323 S. St. Asaph Street (northwest corner), Alexandria
This wood frame, Greek revival style house was built in 1852 by George L. Seaton.
Continue on Wolfe Street to middle of 600 block -- the building on south side
of the street, set backAlexandria Academy
600 block Wolfe Street, Alexandria
Built in 1785, this brick Federal style building housed three schools -- English School, Learned Language School, and the Free School.
Financed by George Washington for indigent students, the Free School developed from the Academy and was located where the Campagna Center is today. In 1812, a "free colored school," founded by a group of free blacks, was held in the Washington Free School. During the Civil War, it was used to house contraband slaves.
Continue on Wolfe Street, turn right on Washington St. to middle of the block
Beulah Baptist Church
320 South Washington Street, Alexandria
Brick. 1863-1864. Remodeled, 1930-1953. This was the first African American church founded in Alexandria after the occupation by Federal troops and the third oldest African American church in Alexandria.
The first "select colored school" was founded in Alexandria by Reverend Clem Robinson in 1862 for contrabands and soon had over 700 students. This was one of several schools in the city founded for the thousands of contrabands who entered the city during the Civil War. Beulah Baptist Church grew out of the school.Continue by making a "U-turn." Go south on Washington Street and
continue to the 600 block.
"THE HILL" area
Roberts Memorial United Methodist Church
606 South Washington Street, Alexandria
This Gothic style brick edifice is the oldest African American church building in Alexandria. The front and interior were altered in the twentieth century. Roberts Chapel began as a part of the predominantly white congregation at the First Methodist Episcopal Church, (in Chapel Alley) now Trinity Methodist.
In 1830, four white and five black members purchased a lot and began the foundation for a separate church. Work stopped in 1831 because of the reaction to the Nat Turner Rebellion. The congregation was forced to move to the present site in 1834. It was originally named Davis Chapel for the Reverend Charles A. Davis, the first pastor of the church.
Make another "U-turn," and go north on Washington Street; then turn left
on Gibbon Street -- one block to right on Columbus Street; then go two blocks
to 411 South Columbus Street.
"THE BOTTOMS" area
The Dip Neighborhood
bounded roughly by Duke, Franklin, Patrick and Washington Streets, Alexandria
This first free black neighborhood in Alexandria was settled about 1800, when undesirable marshy "bottom" land was leased to free men. Many slaves were freed in the early nineteenth century because of the dying tobacco trade in Virginia.
Similar neighborhoods developed between 1830 and 1850 as Alexandria's free black population continued to increase. During the 1960s, the neighborhood experienced a significant architectural change when the DIP Urban Renewal Project erected mid-rise homes and town houses.Odd Fellows Hall
411 South. Columbus Street
Around 1870 this brick structure was probably designed and built with funds from the Freedman's Bureau. It became a major gathering place for African Americans and their secret organizations after the Civil War, including the Odd Fellows, Rising Star, Daughters of Zion and many other groups. It served an important role in developing community identification, promotion of racial consciousness and leadership skills.
Continue on Columbus Street, then left on Duke Street to the middle of the block
Dr. Albert Johnson Residence
814 Duke Street, Alexandria
This mid-nineteenth century two story brick residence with a cast iron porch was the home of Dr. Albert Johnson, (1866-1949), one of the earliest, professionally trained African American physicians to practice in Alexandria.
He graduated in 1892 from Howard University Medical School, the first African American medical school.Continue west on Duke Street to Alfred Street to church on the corner.
Alfred Street Baptist Church
301 South Alfred Street, Alexandria
It was probably designed and built by free black craftsmen. Founded in 1803, it is the oldest African American congregation in Alexandria and one of the oldest in the Washington area.
Alfred Street Baptist Church
In 1818, the African American members of the Baptist Church at 212 South Washington Street with the support of the Alexandria Baptist
Society moved to their own building in the 300 block of South Alfred Street, the first edifice of Alfred Street Baptist Church. The present church, built on the same site, dates from 1855, with alterations dating from the l880s. The church was significant for its major religious, educational and cultural role in Alexandria's free black community prior to the Civil War.
In 1833 Mr. Nuthall, an Englishman, opened a school in the church but it was closed after the Nat Turner rebellion. During a period when Virginia law denied African Americans the right to assemble in groups without a white overseer, the church provided the most consistent opportunity for members of the African American community to meet, exchange information and develop leadership skills.
During the Civil War, Alfred Street Baptist Church was located within the compound of the U.S. Military Railroad Yard. Its Sunday School, started in the l820s, gave free blacks a rare opportunity to learn to read and write. In the 1990s, the congregation completed a new edifice which included the old historic church.
Continue west on Duke Street; four blocks west to 1315 Duke Street
Franklin and Armfield Slave Market
1315 Duke Street, Alexandria
This three-story brick building with mansard roof was built as the residence of Robert Young, Brigadier General of the second Militia of the District of Columbia. By 1828, it was leased by Isaac Franklin and John Armfield and used as a "Negro Jail" or slave pen for slaves being shipped from Northern Virginia to Louisiana.
Franklin and Armfield Slave Market
Active until 1836, this was one of the largest slave trading companies in the country exporting over 3,750 slaves to the new cotton and sugar plantations of the Deep South. Then, other firms continued trading in slaves here.
During the Civil War the building and its surrounding site were used as a military prison for deserters, the L'Ouverture Hospital for black soldiers and the barrack for contraband-slaves who fled the confederate states and sought refuge with Union troops.
The Franldin and Armfield building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is now the office of the Northern Virginia Urban League.
Continue to corner of Duke and West Streets.
Shiloh Baptist Church
1401 Duke Street, Alexandria
This church was founded by fifty former enslaved people in the mess hall of L'Ouverture Hospital in 1863. Reverend Leland Warring, the pastor, was a teacher in the Lancaster School at the Alexandria Academy.
The present church, described as a magnificent brick structure, was built in 1891. The original organ from Shiloh Baptist Church is on display in the Alexandria Black History Resource Center.Continue west on Duke Street to Holland Lane, left one block to park.
The Alexandria African American Heritage ParkHolland Lane, just off Duke Street, Alexandria
The nine-acre memorial park has been developed to honor and commemorate African American contributions to the city of Alexandria. One acre of the park has been preserved as the original site of the 1885 black Baptist cemetery.
Six of the twenty-one known burials remain in their original location and retain their original headstones. Dedicated on June 17, 1995, the park includes a wetland area that provides a home for natural vegetation and animal life. Sculptor Jerome Meadows designed a variety of art forms and a mixed-media bronze sculpture entitled "Truths that Rise from the Roots Remembered," which serves as the park's focal point.
Alexandria African American
Heritage Park
The sculpture consists of four elements: three bronze trees standing twelve to fifteen feet high and a symbolic grave mound. Etched in the bronze trees are the names of notable African American Alexandrians. Through its affiliation with the Alexandria Black History Museum, this park serves as a haven enriched with history and serenity.From the park, return to Duke Street --
Turn right on Duke, left on West Street (at church), then two blocks to King Street,
where shops and restaurants will be your right and left.
