[Archived] Media Advisory: Edmonson Sisters Sculpture to Be Dedicated June 25

WHEN: Friday, June 25, 2010
              9:30 a.m.

WHERE: Edmonson Plaza
                1701 Duke St.
                 Alexandria, VA

WHO:  Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille
             Alexandria City Council
             Sculptor Erik Blome
  
The City of Alexandria, in partnership with Carr Properties, will host a dedication ceremony for a new public art piece at Edmonson Plaza. Edmonson Plaza is named for the Edmonson sisters, Emily and Mary, who were imprisoned at this location in the 1840s, where prominent slave owner Joseph Bruin’s operated his slave business and jail. The sisters were taken to the Bruin jail after a failed escape attempt on a ship called The Pearl that was stranded in the Potomac. Attractive and in their early teens, the Edmonson sisters were destined to leave Alexandria for New Orleans where they would become “fancy girls” or prostitutes. Abolitionists, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, launched a fund raising campaign and bought the girls’ freedom.

Sculptor Erik Blome created a 10 foot-high bronze sculpture, "The Edmonson Sisters," to commemorate their lives and those of others who were enslaved at the Bruin Slave Jail. In addition to the Edmonson sisters, thousands of enslaved people were held there after being separated from their families in the Chesapeake region and later sold away to owners who needed their labor in other Southern states. "The Edmonson Sisters" honors the lives destroyed by slavery while celebrating the triumph of human spirit.

The sculpture was funded by Carr Properties, which redeveloped the property behind the sculpture into a commercial building.