Freedom House Re-Opens in Alexandria

This was my Twitter thread after I attended the dedication on June 20, 2022, with hashtags removed & few words added—

#1: Last night, official opening of Freedom House, site that was slave-trading center in the 1800s. Today, this is what it looks like:

Freedom House, 1315 Duke Street, Alexandria

And then….

#3: Ceremony at Shiloh Baptist Church with various city officials and others involved in the city purchasing the building from the Northern Virginia Urban League to preserve as a museum and education center.

#4: A highlight was a talk by Delegate Delores McQuinn from Richmond, who has championed getting Virginia funding for many African American sites around the state.

#5: But most moving was a ceremony in which the names of each man and woman--but, it turns out, mostly boy and girl--trafficked from the site on October 2, 1828. 202 people. We "lit" a candle when the name of the person whose card we were holding was read out. I commemorated a girl named Eliza, age 12 (excuse fuzzy photo):

#6: Freedom House is now open to the public Thursdays to Mondays. For more information, go to AlexandriaVA.gov/FreedomHouse