ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The city of Alexandria is giving a $63,000 interest-free loan to help a struggling museum built on the site of a former large scale slave-trading operation.

The Washington Post reports that the Alexandria City Council voted earlier this week to help the decade-old Freedom House, which is located in the basement of a house that doubles as the Northern Virginia Urban League headquarters.

The house was part of a compound owned by Franklin and Armfield Co., one of the most successful slave traders. As many as a million slaves may have passed through on their way to Mississippi and Louisiana before the Civil War.

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