Every Step Tells A Story®
Click on the map above or select a module below to take your first step
Curated Experiences (coming soon)
Spanning over eight miles, this one-of-a-kind loop through the city will explore DC’s extraordinary history, culture, and struggle for freedom and equality for ALL.
51 Steps To Freedom is a unique collection of museums, churches, meeting houses, burial grounds, slave quarters, parks, homes, gardens, and 51 historic stops (steps) that tell the story of America's quest for justice and democracy.
General Oliver Otis Howard
Reverend Patrick Francis Healy
1
Georgetown
Georgetown was 50% Black in the 1770s to the 1960s (today it is 6%). Georgetown was also a major slave and tobacco trading port. Much of DC’s early great Black leadership came out of Georgetown where the church and education were early components of free persons of color in DC. Here you'll find the oldest Black church in DC, its historic cemetery and many hidden gems and stories not covered in traditional school books.
Steps Include:
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Emma V. Brown Home
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Alfred Pope, Hannah Cole Pope Home
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Holy Rood Cemetery
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Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, Female Union Band Society Cemetery & Mt. Zion Heritage Center, Jerusalem Baptist Church, First Baptist Church, Herring Hill
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John H. Fleet Home
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Yarrow Mamout Residence
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Patrick Francis Healy Hall, Georgetown University
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Rose Park, The Peters sisters, Margaret & Roumania
Did You Know?
Howard University was founded by Union General Oliver Otis Howard — he was White. Father Patrick Healey, who was born into slavery, is considered the Co-Founder of modern day Georgetown University. He was also the first Black Jesuit priest in the US.
3
Striver's Section/Dupont Circle East
The Striver's Section was historically an enclave of upper-middle-class African Americans, often community leaders, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Striver's Section takes its name from a turn-of-the-20th-century writer who described the district as "the Striver's section, a community of Black aristocracy" focused on striving for freedom and equality.
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
Did You Know?
There were slave quarters on the grounds of The White House and The Decatur House.
5
U St. Corridor, Shaw & LeDroit Park
Known as "The Black Mecca", these contiguous communities are known as one of America’s most historic Black locations. This area boasts more historic churches, homes, venues, events, and personalities per capita than any Black community in the Nation.
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
Did You Know?
Pearl Bailey was brought up in D.C. and got her start on U Street. She coined the phrase "America's Black Broadway" for the area. She returned to DC in her late 60's to study theology at Georgetown University earning her BA in 1985. Grammy and Tony award winner Pearl Bailey was appointed as a special ambassador to the United Nations by President Ford in 1975. In 1988 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.
"Without a struggle,
there can be no progress."
~ Frederick Douglass
2
Foggy Bottom/Dupont Circle West
Original tobacco slave quarters were located here starting in the 1770s when the British tall ships moved slave and tobacco from Africa and England to America. From 1840 - 1970, this area was majority Black (today Foggy Bottom is 9.6% and Dupont Circle is 6%). The community boasts of the homes of Dr. Charles Drew, Duke Ellington, Dr. Rayford Logan, Mrs. Rosa Parks' home-away-from-home as well as an underground railroad site and more.
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
Did You Know?
Bo Diddley — The legendary singer, guitarist, songwriter and music producer who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll lived in Foggy Bottom and had a recording studio on Rhode Island Avenue, N.E. from 1956-1966. He discovered Marvin Gaye (a DC resident) and introduced him to Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records. The rest is history.
4
Anacostia/Congress Heights
In the 1850s, America was heading toward a deadly confrontation between free and slave states. To promote unity between the North and the South, this area in Southeast DC was initially named Uniontown. It was a White suburban community at the time. After the "Uncivil War", new towns called Uniontown started cropping up all over, creating confusion for services like mail delivery. To ease the confusion, Congress enacted legislation to change the name to Anacostia on April 22, 1886, making Anacostia the only community whose name was affixed by Congress. The name Anacostia was derived from a Native American word meaning “village trading center.”
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
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
This is center of our Nation's Capital and is "America's Front Yard." It is home to some of our Nation's most iconic sites. But many of the stories on the National Mall and downtown are not taught in our history books because they highlight the horror of what happens when economics and personal beliefs allow for the oppression of one group over another.
In American history, each major episode against oppression is a step toward freedom. This section of the city is a paradox — full of contradictory words and actions. It is where our federal government made the rules — and at the same time owned those they were ruling.
ALL groups who fought and won their freedom have some connection with this part of DC — Blacks, women, Native Americans, Muslims, Asians, hispanics, LGBTQA+, and those with disabilities — it is here that they coalesce to have their voices heard and enact change. It is where we help define who America is going to become. What history and this part of DC teaches us is that by speaking up — we CAN make a difference.
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” — Jimi Hendrix
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. The Ford’s Theater
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. Black Lives Matter Plaza, The White House, St. Johns
Church, The Decatur House Slave Quarters,
Lafayette Square
NOTE: Bold text denotes African American Heritage Trail Site
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
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.
