Alexandria Dedicates the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial

The City of Alexandria officially dedicated the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial Saturday.

The memorial honors the memory of the Alexandria’s Freedmen, the hardships they faced, and their contributions to the City. The Sept. 6 dedication capped three days of events planned, featuring Alexandria’s Civil War and African American history.

During the Civil War, the Alexandria Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery was the burial place for approximately 1,800 African Americans who fled to Alexandria to escape bondage. Many of them reportedly worked for Union soldiers as laborers, longshoremen, laundresses, cooks and personal servants, according to a story in The Bolling Aviator.

The land, once owned by Francis L. Smith who had reportedly fled town and was the attorney for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, was seized by the federal government to build the cemetery, according to a story in The Washington Post. The land later reportedly reverted back to Smith, who then sold the land to the Bishop of Richmond; the land was sold again and in 1955, a gas station was built and in the ‘60s, office buildings were built at the spot. Archaeologist and historians researched the land and in 2004, archaeologists began to unearth graves under the asphalt, according to The Washington Post.

“I remember playing cowboys and Indians here,” Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille (D) told the crowd Saturday, as reported by The Post. “We had no idea.”

The cemetery at 1001 S. Washington St., was restored and rededicated in 2007. Now, in the sesquicentennial of both the Cemetery and the Civil War, a new memorial honors this site and those who were laid to rest there. Their descendants, many of whom came to Alexandria for the Dedication, now live in nearly all 50 states.

The Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial project was completed under the stewardship of the City of Alexandria and the Friends of Freedmen’s Cemetery. Funding was provided by the City, the Federal Highway Administration and Virginia Department of Transportation through the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project, and a grant from Save America’s Treasures, a public-private partnership between the National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Memorial features artist Mario Chiodo’s sculpture “The Path of Thorns and Roses,” an allegorical depiction of the struggle for freedom; the Memorial’s bas-reliefs depicting the flight to freedom were done by local sculptor Joanna Blake. AECOM (formerly EDAW) and Howard + Revis Design comprised the design team for the Memorial.

For more information, visit the Historic Alexandria Web site.

PHOTO courtesy of City of Alexandria