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Tours By Interest

Her Story - A Curated Journey of Courage and Change

Across our nation women have stood at the heart of America’s ongoing fight for liberty. This experience brings together powerful trail stops that highlight the resilience, leadership, and lasting impact of women who shaped our nation’s history — often against great odds. Walk in their footsteps, feel their courage, and be inspired by the legacy they built for generations to come.

1

Georgetown

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Steps Include: 

  1. Emma V. Brown Home

  2. Alfred Pope, Hannah Cole Pope Home

  3. Holy Rood Cemetery 

  4. Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, Female Union Band Society Cemetery & Mt. Zion Heritage Center, Jerusalem Baptist Church, First Baptist Church, Herring Hill

  5. John H. Fleet Home

  6. Yarrow Mamout Residence 

  7. Patrick Francis Healy Hall, Georgetown University

  8. Rose Park, The Peters sisters, Margaret & Roumania

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Did You Know?

Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981 — but early in her career, no law firm would hire her as an attorney. One firm offered her a job as a secretary instead.

3

Striver's Section/Dupont Circle East

Steps Include: ​

17. The Charles Hamilton Houston Home & The Langston Hughes Home 

18. Delta Sigma Theta & Kappa Alpha Psi DC
      Headquarters, and Zeta Phi Beta DC headquarters

19. Mary Church Terrell Home

20. The Josephine Butler Center at Malcolm X Park 

21. Charles and Lewis Douglass Homes

22. General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. and Sr. Homes

23. St. Augustine Catholic Church

2

Foggy Bottom/Dupont Circle West

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Steps Include:​

9.  O Museum in The Mansion

10. The Stevens School

11. Lisner Auditorium, Ingrid Bergman Call Box & The      
      Toni Morrison Bench, The Nelson Mandela Garden

12. The Dr. Dorothy I. Height Bench

13. St. Mary's Episcopal Church

14. The Leonard Grimes Underground Railroad
      Site & The Alexander Pushkin Statue

15. Dr. Charles Drew & Dr. Rayford Logan Homes

16. Duke Ellington Birth-site and Mural, Bo Diddley's
      Home & Recording Studio

Mary_Jackson_working.jpg
Did You Know?

Mary Jackson, NASA’s first Black female engineer, started her career by challenging segregated education laws — petitioning to take advanced classes in an all-white school.
Her groundbreaking work
helped open doors for
women and minorities
across the space program.

4

Anacostia/Congress Heights​

Steps Include: 

  24. Anacostia’s Home Grown Black Business Corridor

  25. Frederick Douglass Home on Cedar Hill ​

  26. Barry Farm/Hillsdale (Freedmen's Village) & The                      
         Goodman League, The Hillsdale School​, The Birney
         School, Campbell AME, The John Moss House​​

  27. Macedonia Baptist, The Solomon Brown House

  28. United States Colored Cemetery & St. Elizabeths
          Hospital, Mayor Marion Barry Home 

Alice Paul wrote the original Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 — and spent the next five decades fighting for its passage. She believed equality needed to be protected not just by laws, but by the Constitution itself.

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Did You Know?
5

U St. Corridor, Shaw & LeDroit Park

​Steps Include: 

  29. Georgia Douglas Johnson Home

  30. Dr. Alain Locke Home

  31. Jean Toomer Home

  32. Franklin Reeves Center, Club Bali, Dr. MLK’s Poor
         Peoples Campaign Office

  33. Ben’s Chili Bowl, Jelly Roll Morton, The Jungle
          Inn, Lincoln Theater, The Colonnade

  34. New Negro Alliances Sanitary Grocery Store
         Protest Site, Lee’s Florist, Bohemian
         Caverns, Industrial Bank of Washington, DC historic
          murals walk

  35. The African American Civil War Museum, The
         Grimke School

  36. The Addison Scurlock Studio

  37. The Howard Theatre & Chuck Brown Way

  38. Congressman Oscar DePriest Home, Paul
         Lawrence and Alice Dunbar Home & Howard
         University

  39. Dr. Anna Julia Cooper Home, Mayor Walter
         Washington Home, Jesse Jackson, Sr. Home

  40. Dr. Carter G. Woodson Home, Woodson
         Monument & Park & Shiloh Baptist Church

  41. The A. Philip Randolph Home

  42. Blanche Kelso Bruce & Josephine Bruce Home 

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Did You Know?

Frederick Douglass and Mrs. Rosa Parks' funerals were held 90 years apart at the Metropolitan AME Church off of Dupont Circle.

6

Downtown & The National Mall

Steps Include: 

  43. The 1848 Slave Escape on The Pearl, The National
          Era Newspaper, Beecher’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The 1835
          Snow Riot, 7th Street and The Red Summer of 1919

  44. DC's Slave Market and Slave Pens, Central Market at The
         National Archives, The National Council of Negro Women,

  45. DAR Hall/Marion Anderson

  46. Charles Sumner School

  47. 

  48. The Willard Hotel, & The John A. Wilson Bldg. and Mayor
         Marion Barry

  49. The Lincoln Memorial  & The Martin Luther King,
          Jr. Memorial, The National Museum of African
          American History & Culture

  50. Metropolitan AME Church, Charles Sumner School,
          James Wormley Hotel, Franklin Square 

  51.   The White House, St. Johns Church, The Decatur House              Liberty Plaza, Lafayette Square​

Augmented Reality Trail in Washington DC

51 Steps To Freedom® is transforming Washington, DC into the largest outdoor museum — in the world. Spanning over eight miles, this one-of-a-kind augmented reality trail explores D.C.'s extraordinary history, culture, and its ongoing journey toward liberty and opportunity for all.

Did You Know?

A number of stops on the trail are being created by students in the DC area through our Student Voices Program.
LEARN MORE

Support & Volunteer for 51 Steps To Freedom™

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, the 51 Steps to Freedom Trail offers a unique Washington DC tour experience, highlighting key people and places in DC neighborhoods like Anacostia, Georgetown, Dupont Circle, U Street Corridor, where history and culture come alive.

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Our interactive history tour features a groundbreaking augmented reality experience that brings key moments and figures from DC’s history to life, from the Washington Monument, the US Capitol, and the White House to neighborhood landmarks, showcasing the variety of movements that shaped America’s journey for liberty and opportunity.

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By donating or volunteering, you help preserve and share these stories of freedom, resilience and opportunity. Your support ensures that these vital narratives are celebrated on the 51 Steps to Freedom Trail and brought to life through immersive web AR experiences, advancing our mission to create a liberty trail in DC.

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Join us in exploring DC's neighborhoods and supporting this transformative project. Whether you're interested in a monument tour, a city tour, or simply want to make a difference, your involvement is essential to making the 51 Steps to Freedom a lasting educational tool for all who visit Washington DC.

I'd like to to donate to help tell the story of

Washington, DC — and America’s — journey  for liberty and opportunity.

Founding Organizations

© 2021-2025 PIR Marketing

51 Steps To Freedom is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. Your tax-deductible donation funds their programs. No goods or services were provided for this gift. Please consult your tax advisor regarding specific questions about your deductions.

© 2021-2025 All rights reserved. 51 Steps To Freedom® trail concept, design, layout, route, stories, etc. belong exclusively to 51 Steps To Freedom®.

No part of this trail or website, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the written permission of 51 Steps To Freedom®.

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