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African American Heritage Trails

Alexandria’s African American history is told through online StoryMaps and can be experienced in-home on your computer or on your smartphone as you walk the trail along the Potomac River.
Page updated on April 2, 2025 at 10:02 AM

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African American Heritage Trails

AAHT sign with group of people

Even before the founding of the City of Alexandria in 1749, Africans and their descendants, enslaved and free, have lived and worked along the waterfront, making significant contributions to the local economy and culture. In the 1820s and 1830s Alexandria became home to the country's largest domestic slave trading firm, which profited from the sale and trafficking of enslaved African Americans from the Chesapeake to the Deep South. The Civil War revolutionized social and economic relations, and newly freed African Americans found new job opportunities as a result of the waterfront’s industrialization. The Potomac River played an important role in leisure activities too, including picnicking, boating, and fishing, much as it does for Alexandrians and visitors today.

The African American Heritage Trails comprise interconnecting routes in the City of Alexandria. Together, these trails illuminate the history of the African American community over a span of several centuries. The Trails currently have two routes along the Waterfront. The African American Heritage Trail Committee created this walking tour through history, with the support of the Office of Historic Alexandria.

View the sign panels

View a list of each stop

The StoryMaps

Alexandria’s African American history is told through online StoryMaps and can be experienced in-home on your computer or on your smartphone as you walk the trail along the Potomac River. 

Each StoryMap is accompanied by a web page including references and links, for those who would like to explore further. 

View North Trail StoryMap

View South Trail StoryMap

Alexandria, Virginia from the Maryland side of the Potomac, Alfred Waud, 1861. (Courtesy, Library of Congress)

North Waterfront Route

View the web page with references.

The north walk takes you from the foot of King Street and Waterfront Park to the corner of North Fairfax and Montgomery streets, about a mile in distance. The walking trail lasts about 45 minutes at a leisurely pace.

Alexandria, VA., taken by Colonel Ellsworth's Zouaves, New York Illustrated News, June 1861

South Waterfront Route

View the web page with references.

This relatively flat walk takes you along the waterfront from the foot of King Street to Jones Point, a little over two miles in distance and takes about 90 minutes at a leisurely pace.

In the News

A Walk Through Black History: Updated African American Heritage Trail to Come. By Wafir Salih, Alexandria Times, February 8, 2024.

On Saturday, the African American Heritage Trail Committee will gather at Founders Park for the unveiling of 11 new signs and two orientation panels installed along the waterfront. These signs are a showcase of various historical facts and paint a complex history of what African Americans faced in Alexandria since, and even prior to, the city’s founding....

African American Heritage Trail: Ribbon Cutting officially opens South Route. By Jeanne Theismann, Alexandria Gazette Packet, February 15-21. 2-24.

A crowd of more than a hundred gathered in Founders Park Feb. 10 to celebrate the official ribbon cutting for the South Route of the city’s African American Heritage Trail along the Potomac River waterfront.

Honoring Black History Month, Alexandria unveils new African American Heritage Trail signs. By Lacy Nelson, InsideNoVa,, February 20, 2023.

With a red ribbon draped across the marker and flanked on both sides by elected officials and members of the African American Heritage Trail Committee, the marker was the first of two stops during a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the new interpretative signs.

Related Photos and Videos

African American Waterfront Heritage Trail Ribbon Cutting (February 2024)

View the Photo Gallery

Group holding the ribbon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Waterfront Forum (2023)

Watch a panel discussion about the project at the 2023 Alexandria Forum entitled, “Community History and the African American Waterfront Heritage Trail.

 

Celebrate Juneteenth along the Virtual Waterfront (2021)

More Information

  • The Alexandria Waterfront
  • Archaeology on the Waterfront
  • Self-Guided Tours of Historic Alexandria
  • History of Alexandria's African American Community
  • African American History Division

 

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