Traveling Exhibition opens at the Freedom House Museum October 22

For Immediate Release: October 20, 2026

Media Contacts: Audrey Davis - 571.247.5050 / Jeanene Harris 703.746.4734

Traveling Exhibition opens at the Freedom House Museum October 22

Alexandria, Va. - On October 22 the traveling exhibition, Monday Robinson: A Life of Thorns and Roses, will open at the Freedom House Museum at 1315 Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia. This exhibition was created by Belle Grove Plantation located in Middletown, Virginia and debuted at the site in September of this year.

This exhibit highlights the life of Monday Robinson born in 1778, a man whose story encompassed enslavement, freedom, and later, the enslavement of members of his own family as a means of protection.

Robinson's story stretches through many counties in Virginia and is a complicated history. He enslaved his family. While it is believed that it may have been for protection, there is evidence he hired out his children to landowners in his area and used his wife and three of his children as collateral for a loan.

Monday Robinson had written a will prior to his death, but the accuracy about his entire family's freedom was in question. His brother was the administrator of his will and ultimately was able to free nine of Monday's children and grandchildren. With freedom, his family had to leave Frederick County and they migrated to various places including Alexandria. Some descendants are connected to Alexandria's Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial which led genealogist Char McCargo Bah to uncover new branches of the family tree.

Working with Fran Norton Burton who is a great grand-daughter to Hester Robinson Carter and the granddaughter of Douglas Robinson Carter, Bah discovered more about the Alexandria connections to Monday Robinson. In Bah's words, "the Robinson family can date its ancestry back over 250 years in Virginia and have the honor of being a 250th Anniversary family."

After 16 years of research, Robinson's complex life was uncovered by using primary-source documents from Virginia counties, including Lancaster, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Middlesex, Prince William, Fauquier, Essex, Loudoun, Frederick, Shenandoah, and Alexandria, as well as from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The exhibit will guide visitors through census records, tax documents, court orders, deeds, apprenticeship papers, emancipation records, wills, and other sources that reveal Robinson's connections to enslaved and free women in Alexandria, Virginia, and to his later life in Middletown. Robinson was active in the community and conducted business with Belle Grove Plantation.

On Sunday, November 1, Genealogist Char McCargo Bah will give a free lecture entitled Tracing a Child's Heritage from the 20th century to the 18th century in Virginia. This lecture explores the difficulties of researching enslaved persons, free people of color, and family ownership. This lecture will cover a child buried at Alexandria's Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial, her enslaved relatives, and her mother and aunt from Middletown, Virginia. After sixteen years of research by Bah, their stories can now be told.

Char McCargo Bah is the CEO and owner of FindingThingsforU, LLC. She holds undergraduate degrees in Urban Studies and African American Studies, along with several professional certificates. She has 45 years of experience as an investigative researcher and genealogist. Bah has appeared in numerous television interviews and documentaries, including the PBS show History Detectives and a documentary on African American research at Ellis Island in New York.

Her high-profile projects have included connecting the Robinson family to their 18th-century ancestors; finding descendants of two lynching victims in Alexandria; locating descendants for the Virginia Theological Seminary Reparations Project; and finding descendants of Alexandria's Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial.

Bah is also the author of two books and over eighty articles. She has received numerous awards and is a 2014 Living Legend of Alexandria, Virginia.

Char McCargo Bah's lecture will start at 3 p.m. at the Freedom House Museum. Space is limited to 30 guests.
Register here.

The exhibit will be on view at the Freedom House Museum from October 22 until December 31. It will then travel to museums and libraries in the communities where Monday and his family lived.

This exhibit was made possible by the work of Kristen Laise, Executive Director of Belle Grove Plantation; Frances Norton Burton, a descendant; Char McCargo Bah, Brenda Burton Nelson, a genealogist, author, and historical researcher focused on Robinson's life in the Shenandoah Valley; and Jess Pritchard-Ritter, digital public historian and exhibit designer, For the Love of History LLC. Funding was provided through a grant from Crescent Cities Charities as well as private donations.

For further information, contact Jeanene Harris on 703.746.4734. For special accommodation, please contact Nicole Quinn on 703.746.4554 one week prior to the event.

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About the Office of Historic Alexandria

The Office of Historic Alexandria preserves and shares the history of the City of Alexandria with eight museums, historic sites, archives, archaeology, tours, exhibits, and public programs. Through powerful storytelling and confronting the City's past, Historic Alexandria enriches the present and inspires the future. We enhance the quality of life for residents and visitors and serve as a partner in the City's equity and inclusion initiatives. For more information, visit alexandriava.gov/Historic.

For reasonable disability accommodation, contact Nicole Quinn at [email protected] or call 703.746.4554, Virginia Relay 711.

If you prefer communication in another language, free interpretation and translation services are available to you, please email [email protected] or call 703-746-3960.