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Booker T. Washington National Monument, Hardy, VA

Photo: National Park Service Digital Image Archives, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and resized.

Sightseeing

Booker T. Washington National Monument

National Park Service site preserving part of the Virginia tobacco farm where educator Booker T. Washington was born into enslavement.

12130 Booker T. Washington Highway, Hardy, VA 24101 · Hardy, VA

About Booker T. Washington National Monument

This National Park Service monument protects portions of a 207-acre tobacco plantation in rural Franklin County, Virginia, where Booker T. Washington spent his earliest years in bondage. Visitors can tour a reconstructed kitchen cabin and smokehouse, watch costumed interpreters demonstrate daily life of the 1850s, and see draft horses and gardens that show farming methods of that era. A visitor center offers exhibits on Washington's rise to become an influential educator, author, and speaker. The site also tells the wider story of chattel slavery and agriculture in the antebellum South.

  • #national park service
  • #African American heritage
  • #slavery history
  • #reconstruction era
  • #living history

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