DC Legacy Project: Barry Farm-Hillsdale

Young residents of the Barry Farms Housing Development, ca. 1944.

Library of Congress

Quick Facts

Location:

Washington, D.C.

Significance:

A Reconstruction Era community for freed people in the D.C. area, which transformed into a site for segregated public housing in the 20th century.

Designation:

DC Legacy Project: Barry Farm-Hillsdale is a part of the Reconstruction Era National Historic Network

OPEN TO PUBLIC:

No

MANAGED BY:

DC Legacy Project: Barry Farm-Hillsdale

The DC Legacy Project: Barry Farm-Hillsdale in southeast Washington, DC is transforming five historically landmarked buildings at Barry Farm Dwellings into a commemoration of the history of the land from its founding as a Freedmen’s town in 1868 by the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands through to its time as a segregated public housing complex. Interpretive programs are planned to tell the story of desegregation of DC area schools and of the Black landowning community that formed here during Reconstruction. This site is not open to the public, but is a part of the Reconstruction Era National Historic Network.