Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial

Between 1864 and 1869, the Contrabands and Freedmen’s Cemetery served as the burial place for about 1,800 African Americans who fled to Union-occupied Alexandria to escape from bondage.

Visitors can experience a memorial park that commemorates the free African-American men, women and children interred on its grounds after escaping slavery.

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.