Join us virtually for this year's Black History Month events, including a concert, film, Story Time and lectures.

This week in Historic Alexandria, enjoy the many exhibits, public programs and special events offered by our city’s great museums and historic sites! Information on daily calendar listings, museum hours, local history and much more is included in this e-newsletter, updated each week on this webpage or delivered to your in-box. To subscribe to this and other information from the City of Alexandria, create an e-news account and select your notifications of interest here.

Join us for a free, virtual lecture on Saturday February 12, 2002, 11 a.m., sponsored by the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project. (Register in advance). Violent clashes between large crowds of different races have disturbed the social order in the United States since long before the Civil War. Susan Strasser investigates the term, and a history of racially charged violence that has framed American discussions of race throughout the nation’s history.

The 49th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Program honors the life and legacy of Dr. King in reverence to the King Center’s 2022 theme, It Starts With Me: Shifting Priorities to Build the Beloved Community. See a video of the program.

Volunteers are needed for the Tour d’ Alexandria bike ride in April 2022. The theme for this ride is “resilience” and will feature points of interest that reflect the resilience of Alexandria communities past and present, the growth of diverse neighborhoods, and to include the commemoration of the lynching of Joseph McCoy.

Alexandria’s history offers a local lens to explore events that have changed the nation. Learners of all ages can explore Alexandria’s history through online and on-site offerings designed by Museum Educators and Curators. Historic Alexandria offers educators the opportunity to reinforce their teaching with hands-on experiences, field trips, kits, and online resources.

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 is committed to claiming Alexandria’s monument in partnership with EJI.

The Historic Structures Report (HSR) for 1315 Duke Street, the Freedom House Museum, was formally presented by SmithGroup on October 28, 2021. Watch a video of the presentation, view the presentation slideshow, read the full report or view a summary.

Preserving Their Names is the new online exhibition showing objects and digital photographs from the Black Lives Remembered Collection. Illustrated with material donated via The Legacy of George Floyd Collecting Initiative, the exhibition documents some of the ways the local community responded to the tragic murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. New submissions to the collecting initiative are still received here. Read a statement on the anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.

Over the past year, OHA has recorded our community's response to the pandemic by collecting objects, images and stories from citizens across the City. See a sampling of this public history collecting effort, and learn more about contributing to this on-going project. 

The Alexandria Black History Museum’s The Moss Kendrix Collection was a 2020 honoree in the Virginia Association of Museums’ Top 10 Endangered Artifacts.

The shoreline of the Potomac River where Alexandria is located today was inhabited for centuries, long before the modern community was founded. When Captain John Smith neared this point in 1608, he met at least two groups of indigenous peoples, who were among the thousands of Native Americans who inhabited the region and enjoyed its rich resources of fish and game. 

Alexandria’s African American history is told through an online StoryMap and can be experienced in-home on your computer or on your smartphone as you walk the trail along the Potomac River. The walking trail lasts about 45 minutes at a leisurely pace. The webpage presents more in-depth information about the stops highlighted in the StoryMap.

We are interested in hearing your story.. If you currently live, work, or volunteer with the City of Alexandria, or have done so in the past, you can participate in the Historic Alexandria Oral History Program. We are currently conducting interviews virtually. Fill out our survey if you would like to share your story.

Many of the City's premier historic sites are owned and operated by the City of Alexandria and fall under the administration of the Office of Historic Alexandria, the department of City government charged with the conservation, interpretation and promotion of these links to the past. Find out more about each of our museums and historic sites.

The City of Alexandria’s wayfinding signage system helps people find their way around the city. Take a look at the new map and history panel “mini-kiosks” in Old Town, from the Masonic Temple on Shuter's Hill to the waterfront. Read the full text of the history panels here.

Enjoy a variety of walking and bike tours, listen to podcasts, explore Alexandria's Civil War heritage with a free iPhone app, go on a scavenger hunt, or learn about Trail Signs and the Alexandria Heritage Trail. For a short preview, check out Visit Alexandria 360, a virtual tour.

What happened in Alexandria on today's date, or tomorrow, or on your birthday? See today's historical events, or search for another date. These daily events in Alexandria's history were first printed in "This Week in Historic Alexandria." 

Out of the Attic, featuring historical photographs of Alexandria, is a column produced by the Office of Historic Alexandria and published weekly in the Alexandria Times. An archive of articles dating back to the column's beginning in 2007 appears here with permission of the newspaper. Sort or search the index to learn about places or topics of interest.

As redevelopment takes place along the waterfront, archaeologists are learning more about the city’s maritime past. Learn about the discovery of four 18th-century ships, wharves and warehouses, and the current effort to record the ship timbers with 3D scanning, and consider a generous donation to the Save Our Ships Fund.

The goal of this project is to expand interpretation in Fort Ward Park to include the full range of its history, especially including the African American experience and the post-Civil War Fort community. Fort Ward's Civil War history will remain a core theme, but new elements will explore the legacy of that pivotal era. The public is invited to attend meetings of the Committee, announced on the  Calendar of Events. The latest design documents are posted here. Read the Fort Ward Interagency Annual Report for FY 2020.

Generations of passengers have embarked on journeys and were welcomed home at the Alexandria Union Station. Built in 1905, the station is on the National Register of Historic Places. Stop by the station to see interpretive exhibits, or to take the train.

Explore centuries of human history. See a 13,000-year-old Clovis point, an 18th-century apothecary, a restored Civil War fort, a 1940s segregated library, and more. See all the information you need to plan a visit to the Historic Alexandria museums. Before your visit, be sure to print an eSavings Coupon.

Visit the Museum Store at the Alexandria History Museum at The Lyceum (201 S. Washington Street) and online at The Alexandria Shop. The shop offers great gift ideas, a wide variety of Alexandria-related merchandise and the very best selections from all the Historic Alexandria museum stores. Your purchases support programming at Historic Alexandria's museums.