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Donations needed as Freedom House museum inches closer to opening

Freedom House at 1315 Duke Street (photo via City of Alexandria)

Ahead of the Freedom House’s scheduled opening this spring, the Office of Historic Alexandria is asking for donations to help with some new exhibits and operations for the museum.

The museum was originally scheduled to open earlier this year, but that opening was pushed back to April 2022.

“Throughout this year we have been sharing updates about Freedom House as we work to restore [and] interpret this significant Alexandria [and] national site, slated to open by April 2022,” the Office of Historic Alexandria said. “As you consider your end of the year giving, help us continue telling these important stories. Your donation will help support the building as well as the 3 new exhibits that will not only educate [and] inspire, but challenge long held assumptions about race [and] equity in Virginia.

The new museum shifts the focus away from the lives and activities of the slavers who owned the building and more to the thousands of people who were enslaved and brought through the site between 1828 and 1861.

The museum is also receiving $150,000 in ARPA funding to help pay for staff.

“Support the preservation and interpretation of this important National Historic Landmark,” the city said on its website. “Located at 1315 Duke Street, this building was ‘ground zero’ for the domestic slave trade in the Chesapeake region. Between 1828 and 1861, thousands of men, women, and children were shipped or marched overland to markets in the Deep South. Since so many sites related to the domestic slave trade no longer exist, it is imperative that we preserve the building and tell the stories of the men, women, and children whose lives were impacted.”

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