The Washington Revels Jubilee Voices ensemble is committed to the preservation of African American history and traditions–presenting songs and stories of struggle and perseverance, trials, and triumphs, as expressed through a cappella music, drama, and dance. Established in 2010, the group now performs regularly throughout the Washington DC area, singing, sharing, and learning the stories of the people in those communities.

This Black History Month performance was in partnership with the Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Black History Museum. 

This performance was in partnership with the Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Black History Museum.

This Black History Month performance was in partnership with the Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Black History Museum.

In our 2021 Kwanzaa workshop, our presenters will teach you easy crafts, activities and give you demonstration on how to make Groundnut Stew for your Kwanzaa feast – things to discover and enchant for every age.

Kwanzaa is an African American holiday that focuses on celebrating family, community, and culture. Learn more about how to celebrate Kwanzaa in your home by watching the video (from the free virtual Kwanzaa How-To Workshop held in 2020), and by reading more about this special holiday. Create a celebration table at home by making a Mkeka (mat) and learn more about 21st-century Black men and women in Alexandria who have made a difference through this Word Search.

A virtual program
Originally presented March 30, 2022

See Part I below, March 24, 2021

In September 2019, Virginia Theological Seminary announced the creation of a reparations endowment fund and the intent to research, uncover, and recognize African Americans who toiled under the oppression of VTS during slavery and throughout the Jim Crow era. The March 30th lecture looks at the program’s progress providing reparations to descendants since March 2021’s lecture and overview. This year, Ebonee Davis, will provide an update to the program and speak with one of the descendants about what the VTS reparations program has meant to their family. 

Ebonee Davis, Associate for Multicultural Ministries Programming and Historical Research for Reparations with VTS, will update the research findings and implementation of VTS’ Reparations Program. Davis is a public historian with nearly 15 years’ experience working for local, state, and national institutions in the Americas and Africa. With VTS, she is coordinating the research efforts of the VTS’ Reparations Program and works directly with the program’s descendant families. 

This event is sponsored by the Alexandria Historical Society, Alexandria Black History Museum, and the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project. 

Virtual program presented on March 24, 2022

Dr. LaNitra Berger presented a lecture on South African artist Irma Stern’s complex life and work. Dr. Berger discussed her recently published book, “Irma Stern and the Racial Paradox of South African Modern Art: Audacities of Color,” which explores how Stern became South Africa’s most prolific and controversial painter. Stern depicted the lives of people who are of black, Jewish and mixed race origins, while maintaining a neutral position on apartheid. A discussion with Rabbi David Spinrad, a member of the ACRP Steering Committee, followed the lecture.

A Virtual Film Screening and Discussion
Presented October 20, 2021

This event is a joint program of the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project and the Alexandria Historical Society

"How the Monuments Came Down,” produced by Field Studio in association with VPM, Virginia’s home for public media, is a timely and searing look at the history of white supremacy and Black resistance in Richmond. The feature-length film — brought to life by history-makers, descendants, scholars, and activists — reveals how monuments to Confederate leaders stood for more than a century, and why they fell. This virtual discussion was a live, public presentation on October 20, 2021. The panel includes public historian Lauranett Lee, Eugene Thompson, past member of the Alexandria Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Confederate Memorials and Street Names, and the filmmakers Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren. At the time of this posting, the film can be viewed on PBS.

Get a behind-the-scenes look at a community history project featuring stories of African American people, places and neighborhoods from the time of Alexandria’s founding through the 20th century. The African American Heritage Trail Committee discuss the importance of Black history in Alexandria, what archaeology reveals about the past, and the potential benefits and impacts of community history initiatives.

Author lecture, originally presented June 4, 2021
Sponsored by the City of Alexandria and the Alexandria-Caen Sister City Committee

As part of the City of Alexandria’s 11th annual D-Day commemoration, Linda Hervieux, Paris-based American journalist, photographer and author of FORGOTTEN: The Untold Story of D-Day's Black Heroes, at Home and at War, shares the story of D-Day’s only African-American combat soldiers, who were effectively written out of the history of the Normandy invasion. Tom Brokaw called FORGOTTEN "utterly compelling," and Douglas Brinkley said "all Americans should read" this battalion's journey through segregated Jim Crow America to unexpected freedom in Britain and France. Hervieux has lectured extensively on the African Americans of D-Day and World War II at Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, the Imperial War Museum in London, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Originally presented May 27 2021

The panel discussion features three professionals with deep expertise in this timely and important topic. John Sprinkle, Bureau Historian for the National Park Service, will open the session with a discussion on historic preservation and neighborhood conservation, specifically focusing on displacement, urban violence, and architectural survey in Alexandria. Purvi Irwin, Practice Manager for Architecture at CADD Microsystems, will then discuss new approaches to include diversity and inclusion in the preservation field while preserving our past for the future. Both Mr. Sprinkle and Ms. Irwin serve on the Alexandria Board of Architectural Review. Finally, Jaqueline Tucker, Race and Society Equity Office in the City Manager’s Office, will examine ways to operationalize diversity and equity in Alexandria.

Originally presented on May 11, 2021
Sponsored by the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project

Historian Joshua D Rothman presents his new book, The Ledger and the Chain. Rothman recounts the shocking story of the domestic slave trade by tracing the lives and careers of Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, who built the largest and most powerful slave-trading operation in American history. Donations to the Freedom House Museum, once headquarters of Franklin & Armfield, are welcome. 

Originally presented on Thursday, May 6, 2021

Chocolate City tells the tumultuous, four-century story of race and democracy in our nation’s capital, of which Alexandria was once a part. Tracing D.C.’s massive transformations from a sparsely inhabited plantation society into a diverse metropolis, from a center of the slave trade to the nation’s first black-majority city, from “Chocolate City” to “Latte City” this account is peppered with unforgettable characters, a history of deep racial division but also one of hope, resilience, and interracial cooperation. George Derek Musgrove co-authored this book with Chris Myers Asch. Dr. Musgrove is an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Originally presented on March 24, 2021
Sponsored by the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project

In September 2019, Virginia Theological Seminary announced the creation of a reparations endowment fund and the intent to research, uncover, and recognize African Americans who toiled under the oppression of VTS during slavery and throughout the Jim Crow era. Ebonee Davis, Associate for Multicultural Ministries Programming and Historical Research for Reparations with VTS, shares the research findings and implementation of VTS’ Reparations Program. Davis is a public historian with nearly 15 years experience working for local, state, and national institutions in the Americas and Africa. With VTS, she is coordinating the research efforts of the VTS’ Reparations Program and works directly with the program’s descendant families. This virtual event was sponsored by the Alexandria Historical Society, Alexandria Black History Museum, and the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project.

Originally presented on February 24, 2021

As automobile travel increased in the 20th century, refusal of service and other threats made travel extremely difficult for African Americans. In response, Victor H. Green began publishing The Green Book, which provided a safety net with its listings for services such as garages, barbers, beauty parlors, hotels and guest houses, tailors, restaurants, and drug stores that welcomed African Americans. Susan Hellman, Principal Planner with the City of Alexandria Planning & Zoning Historic Preservation division, will explore Virginia businesses listed in The Green Book during this lecture.

Start your own research into The Green Book:

• New York Public Library Digital Collections
• VirginiaGreenBook.com ​

Originally presented on February 17, 2021

Dr. Brenna Wynn Greer traces how Black public relations guru Moss Hyles Kendrix enlisted white corporate America in a campaign to redefine black citizenship after World War II. Dr. Greer also examines how Kendrix and his work—so visible and so important in the early Cold War era—was almost lost to us. Dr. Greer is Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College, and her first book Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined African American Citizenship (University of Pennsylvania Press), is now available for purchase.

The Ramsey Homes were an example of early public housing in Alexandria, Virginia. The homes were constructed during WWII as permanent housing for African American defense workers and their families. The buildings were demolished in 2018 and replaced with higher density affordable housing.

This virtual symposium is a case study of the innovative construction of the World War II era Ramsey Homes and their African American residents.

Topics include: the history of public housing and Ramsey Homes; genealogy of early residents; architecture and engineering; and the process of documenting construction techniques. Click on time stamps below to view selected sessions.

Session 1: 
Welcome by Mayor Justin Wilson
7:00​ Project Overview, Helen McIlvaine, Office of Housing Director

Session 2:
16:53​ The Evolution of the Site (1834-2018), Anna Maas, Architectural Historian/Preservation Planner
1:09:33​ Segregation War Time Housing, Char McCargo Bah, Historian, Finding Things for U, LLC

Session 3:
2:03:35​ The pre-Fab Four: Experimental Design and Construction Techniques for Defense Worker Housing, John Dumsick and Al Cox
2:49:18​ Building What Was Built - Using BIM for Historic Interpretation, Purvi Gandhi Irwin
3:31:35​ Keith Pettigrew, Executive Director of ARHA
3:34:30​ Virtual Site Tour
3:35:56 Closing remarks, Gretchen Bulova, Director of the Office of Historic Alexandria

Originally presented on January 28, 2020
Sponsored by the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project

Edward Ball, a descendant of a Klansman, tells the story of his ancestor. For whites, to have a Klansman in the family tree is no rare thing. Demographic estimates suggest that fifty percent of whites in the United States have at least one ancestor who belonged to the Ku Klux Klan at some point in its history. Ball’s great-great grandfather, Constant Lecorgne, had a career in white terror of notable and bloody completeness: massacres, night riding, masked marches, street rampages; all part of a tireless effort that he and other Klansmen made to restore white power when it was threatened by the emancipation of four million enslaved African Americans. To offer a non-white view of the Ku-klux, Ball includes the voices of descendants of African Americans who were once victimized by “our Klansman.” 

This author lecture was presented by the Office of Historic Alexandria as part of the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project, a city-wide initiative dedicated to helping Alexandria understand its history of racial terror hate crimes and to work toward creating a welcoming community bound by equity and inclusion.

Originally presented on December 9, 2020 
Sponsored by the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project

This conversation with Civil Rights Attorney Philip Hirschkop about the Loving Case and his groundbreaking legal career will inspire you. He is interviewed by Jean Kelleher, Director of the Office on Human Rights. Mr. Hirschkop also answers questions about his Supreme Court cases, his work on prison reform, and he remembers some of his past clients who have included Martin Luther King, Jr., H. Rap Brown, Norman Mailer and the America Nazi Party.

This conversation is sponsored by the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project. It’s the first of a series of conversations we will host periodically with social justice leaders. The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project (ACRP) is a city-wide initiative dedicated to helping Alexandria understand its history of racial terror hate crimes and to work toward creating a welcoming community bound by equity and inclusion.

By Steve Hammond, genealogist and family historian. Nancy Syphax, once enslaved by tavern keeper John Gadsby, is Mr. Hammond’s third great-grandmother.
Originally presented on November  19, 2020

Working to find the African American roots of the prominent Syphax family, Steve Hammond forged working relationships with scholars across the nation. Through his work, Mount Vernon, Carlyle House, Arlington House, and the White House Historical Association as well as Historic Alexandria’s own Gadsby’s Tavern Museum and the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum have been able to tell a more complete story of Alexandria and the nation.

Alexandria Black History Museum Director Audrey Davis talks about Juneteenth, why we celebrate it, and why it is significant now more than ever.