Introducing the

Emancipation Bells

Join us as we build an outdoor performing arts space in Southeast D.C. to honor the legacy of American abolitionists.

The Emancipation Bells in brief.

A concert-grade grand carillon will rise from a wooded knoll adjacent to the Bridge District, joining the family of carillons (Washington National Cathedral, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Netherlands Carillon, et al.) as the first of its kind east of the Anacostia River at a scale that’s more approachable to audience and artists alike.

Plus! Free year-round performances, recitals, and events.

The bell of freedom cannot be unrung.

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring “that all persons held as slaves” within rebel states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

Bells rang out in jubilant peal as word of the Proclamation resounded across the nation.

Before that momentous stroke of the pen, an inflection point in American history, advocates of abolition had been working tirelessly for decades – men and women who demanded justice, equality, dignity, and freedom.

It’s time their stories are tolled.

Ringing history to life

This new carillon, ring of peal bells, amphitheater, and garden will stand in commemoration of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, with each of the bells named in honor of an abolitionist who worked to end slavery in America.