The African American Burial Ground is a historic cemetery for the enslaved, located in

Ashburn, Virginia Ashburn is a census-designated place (CDP) in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. At the 2010 United States Census, its population was 43,511, up from 3,393 twenty years earlier. It is northwest of Washington, D.C., and part of the Washingt ...

, off Harry Byrd Highway (

Virginia State Route 7 Virginia State Route 7 (VA 7) is a major primary state highway and busy commuter route in northern Virginia, United States. It travels southeast from downtown Winchester to SR 400 (Washington Street) in downtown Alexandria. Its ...

) in

Loudoun County, Virginia Loudoun County () is in the northern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. In 2020, the census returned a population of 420,959, making it Virginia's third-most populous county. Loudoun County's seat is Leesburg. Loudoun C ...

. Most of the enslaved buried there were from nearby Belmont Plantation. The abandoned site was rediscovered in 2015 by Rev. Michelle Thomas. Rev. Thomas was the president of the local

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

chapter in 2019. That year, Governor

Ralph Northam Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf"). The most common forms ...

appointed her to the Commission on African American History Education in the Commonwealth. In 2017, the real estate developer

Toll Brothers Toll Brothers is a company which designs, builds, markets, sells, and arranges financing for residential and commercial properties in the United States. In 2020, the company was the fifth largest home builder in the United States, based on home ...

, which owned the land, donated to a new Loudoun Freedom Center. In 2021, the developer agreed to donate an additional , which will be used to re-create a schoolhouse and other structures used by enslaved people. Also planned are a

columbarium A columbarium (; pl. columbaria) is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns, holding cremated remains of the deceased. The term can also mean the nesting boxes of pigeons. The term comes from the Latin "'' colu ...

and a scatter garden, where people can scatter ashes of their loved ones. In 2020 Michelle Thomas buried the first free Black in the cemetery: her 16-year-old son, dead of drowning.

References

External links

* {{coord, display=title Tourist attractions in Loudoun County, Virginia African-American cemeteries in Virginia Cemeteries in Loudoun County, Virginia