By Robert Oliver, president of the Lamond-Riggs Library Friends

On February 9, 2025, the Lamond-Riggs Library Friends screened the documentary “Barry Farm: Community, Land, and Justice in Washington, DC” at the Lamond-Riggs Library in celebration of Black History Month. Some audience members were well versed in the history of Barry Farm while others knew little.

Barry Farm was originally a working plantation owned by a man named James Barry, hence the name Barry Farm. Union Army General Oliver Otis Howard led the Freedmen’s Bureau after the Civil War. In 1867, the Freedmen’s Bureau purchased 375 acres of land from Barry to found Barry Farm. The original inhabitants of Barry Farm paid for their land. An interesting historical footnote is that Howard University bears the name of General Howard.

Barry Farm became a thriving Black enclave. However, pressures from the “Great Migration” as African-Americans moved North for better jobs and to escape “Jim Crow” impacted the Barry Farm community. 

The Washington of that time decided to address the migration by building a housing project within the Barry Farm community. Loss of jobs, deterioration of the public housing, and the crack epidemic led to the decline of this community.

Barry Farm resident Emily Edmondson and her sister Mary participated in the famous 1848 attempted slave escape via The Pearl, a ship docked at DC’s wharf. They were eventually caught and sold into slavery before the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, an abolitionist, raised funds to purchase their freedom.

Lastly, Mrs. Linda Leaks, an activist who was inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame on October 5, 2023, shared her knowledge of Barry Farm. She discussed the involvement of Empower DC during the final days of Barry Farm’s existence.

To learn more, you can access the DC Public Library Kanopy Service. Follow the instructions. Then you too can view “Barry Farm” and other great documentaries at your leisure.