For thousands of years before Europeans arrived, Indigenous people built diverse and sophisticated communities with large fortified towns and extensive trade networks along the Alabama River.
Freedom Monument Sculpture Park
Freedom Monument Sculpture Park
Overlooking the Alabama River, Freedom Monument Sculpture Park honors the lives and memories of the 10 million Black people who were enslaved in America and celebrates their courage and resilience.
At this 17-acre site along the very river where tens of thousands of enslaved people were trafficked, breathtaking art and original artifacts invite an immersive, interactive journey and provide a unique view into the lives of enslaved people.
Listen to Muscogee family stories as they were told centuries ago on this very spot. Step inside a train car like those used to traffic enslaved people to Montgomery as you hear trains pass on nearby tracks originally laid by enslaved people. Stand before an authentic dwelling inhabited by enslaved people and marvel at sculptures created from bricks made by enslaved artisans.
Explore art and artifacts that animate the story of enslavement in America
Here, where thousands of Black people were trafficked by boat and rail to forced labor camps along the Alabama River, the lives and legacies of enslaved Black people are explored, remembered, and honored.
Human Pictures
The abduction, abuse, and enslavement of Africans trafficked by Europeans across the Atlantic Ocean altered the global landscape and created a legacy of suffering and bigotry
Bryan G. Stevenson
Dwellings inhabited by enslaved people were crowded, crudely built, and scantily furnished. These original, 170-year-old dwellings inhabited by enslaved people tell an important story about enslavement in America and its legacy.
Bryan G. Stevenson
Rail cars trafficked tens of thousands of enslaved people to the Deep South in the 19th century. Learn more about the journey at Freedom Monument Sculpture Park.
Matt Odom
Enslavement was enforced by violence and brutal punishments and yet enslaved people persevered and fought for freedom.
Strike by Hank Willis Thomas (Human Pictures)Remembering Slavery, Celebrating Freedom
Remembering Slavery, Celebrating Freedom
Europeans brought violence, disease, and exploitation that devastated Indigenous communities. Thousands died when the U.S. forcibly removed Indigenous people from their land.
The Trail of Tears by Robert Lindneux (1942)
Between 1501 and 1867, nearly 13 million African people were kidnapped, forced onto European and American ships, and trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved in the Americas.
Many of the millions of enslaved Black people trafficked to this region arrived by boat on the Alabama River or by the rail cars and rail lines that border this space.
Alabama Department of Archives and History
Disease, violence, horrific work conditions, trauma, and lack of access to medical care contributed to an exceedingly high mortality rate among enslaved people. Nearly six million Black people died enslaved in the U.S.
At the heart of this 17-acre site rises the National Monument to Freedom, which honors four million formerly enslaved Black people who won freedom after the Civil War.
For formerly enslaved people who survived the horrors of slavery, the 1870 census provided the first opportunity to exercise newfound liberty and express deeply rooted hope for the future by officially registering chosen family names.
More than 100,000 names representing millions of Black families are engraved here, forging a connection to the courage, strength, and resilience of ancestors that you can reach out and touch.
