ALEXANDRIA, VA – Mayor Aliya Gaskins led a ribbon-cutting ceremony today at the Freedom House Museum—once the headquarters of the Franklin & Armfield slave-trading operation, one of the largest in the United States before the Civil War—joined by city officials and dignitaries to celebrate the completion of the building’s exterior restoration.

The event marked the third phase of a multi-year rehabilitation that began in March 2020, when the City of Alexandria acquired the property at the height of the pandemic. This latest phase focused on preserving the structure and ensuring the museum continues to tell, with accuracy and reverence, the story of the thousands of enslaved men, women, and children trafficked through this site to the Deep South.

A Landmark with a Painful Past

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