Black History Month is an annual recognition and celebration of the history, achievements and contributions of African Americans and persons of African descent in U.S. history. The City of Alexandria invites the public to celebrate Black History Month through special events and activities at the Alexandria Black History Museum and tours of Freedom House Museum, throughout February.

"Stand Up and Fight" is the theme for this year's Martin Luther King Jr. Art Exhibition. The student artwork will be on display in the Vola Lawson Lobby at City Hall from January 21, 2019 to February 28, 2019, with a recognition program in Council Chambers on January 21 at 1 pm. 

"Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad" is on exhibit at the Museum from February 2 – March 16, 2019. Photographer Jeanine Michna-Bales has spent more than a decade meticulously researching “fugitive” slaves and the ways they escaped to freedom. 

Artist Sherry Sanabria’s African American historic site paintings are on display in the Museum's Robert Robinson Gallery. These paintings are part of Sanabria’s “Sites of Conscience” series, which takes viewers to places of horror, places of pain and suffering, places we want to forget, but never should. 

Bring your little learners to the Alexandria Black History Museum for cultural stories and creative craft activities that introduce world history and folklore. Story time will take place every first Saturday of the month at 11 a.m. in the Watson Reading Room (located next door to the museum.) All ages are welcome, but most suitable for children 3 – 6 years old. Suggested $3.00 donation.

Location, hours, directions, and everything you need to know to visit the Alexandria Black History Museum. Open Tuesday to Saturday. 
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The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama includes over 800 steel monuments, one for each county in the United States where a racial terror lynching took place. Their Community Remembrance Project invites jurisdictions to claim and install a copy of their monument. The City of Alexandria's monument is planned to be claimed and brought to the City in 2019.

Alexandria Black History Museum incorporates the Robert H. Robinson Library as one of two exhibition galleries. The Robinson Library was originally constructed in 1940 following a sit-in at the segregated Alexandria Library. Learn more about the Sit-Down Strike, the Parker-Gray School and the Alexandria Black History Research Center.

Watson Reading Room, established in 1995, provides an environment for learning about the diversity of African American cultural traditions. Located next door to the Alexandria Black History Museum, the Watson Reading Room is a non-circulating research repository focusing on issues of African-American history and culture.

This nine-acre green space and wetland includes a 19th century African American cemetery. The focal point of the park is a sculpture group of bronze trees called "Truths That Rise From the Roots Remembered." The Park, located at 500 Holland Lane just south of Duke Street, offers a place for celebration, commemoration and quiet reflection.

The Memorial, at 1001 S. Washington Street, served as the burial place for about 1,800 African Americans who fled to Alexandria to escape from bondage during the Civil War. The Memorial opened in 2014 to honor the memory of the Freedmen, the hardships they faced, and their contributions to the City.

The Museum at 1315 Duke Street was once the headquarters and holding pen for the largest domestic slave trading firm in the United States. The building is currently owned by the Northern Virginia Urban League and together with the Office of Historic Alexandria, we invite you to visit the museum in this historic reminder of slavery. 

Visit Fort Ward Park to see historic signage highlighting the post-Civil War African American community known as The Fort. The Fort is the focus of an effort by the Office of Historic Alexandria to study and preserve the post-Civil War historic resources of Fort Ward Park. 

Did you know that long before the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the nation’s first “sit down strike” for racial justice occurred in Alexandria? In 1939, this act of civil disobedience was staged by five young African-American men in the city’s segregated Queen Street Library.