Leesburg, VA (February 9, 2026) — A new exhibit now on display at the Thomas Balch Library tells a story that has been carefully built, protected, and passed down for generations in Loudoun County’s Black community.
Titled “A Century of Black History Commemorations: The Black Community and the BHC – Making of Memory in Loudoun County,” the exhibit is on view in the Mercer Room through the end of March.
The exhibit traces the work of the Black History Committee (BHC) of the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library, founded in 2000. From the beginning, the committee aligned its mission with the values of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History—collecting, preserving, and sharing African American history as a core part of the American story, not a side note.
Many of the committee’s founders were born and raised right here in Loudoun County. They took on the work with a clear goal: to make sure their history was told in their own voices. Over the past 25 years, scholars, educators, local historians, and volunteers have built a body of work that reflects the strength, persistence, and contributions of Black communities across the county.
Visitors to the exhibit will see how that history shows up in everyday life—through long-standing advocacy for fair and accredited schools, through civil rights activism by both adults and young people, and through community traditions like Emancipation Day commemorations honoring the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
The committee’s work is rooted in the legacy of historians like Carter G. Woodson and Arturo Schomburg. Inspired by that tradition, the BHC has helped build accessible collections at the library, including oral histories, photographs, artifacts, and publications. Together, they document nearly 30 Black communities formed in Loudoun before and after Emancipation.
Those collections didn’t come together by accident. They were built through partnerships with families, churches, civic groups, and local government—each contributing pieces of a larger story about the people whose lives and labor helped shape Loudoun County and continue to inform research, genealogy, and community memory today.
The exhibit is open during regular Thomas Balch Library hours:
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Monday and Friday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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Tuesday: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
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Wednesday: 2 to 8 p.m.
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Saturday: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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Sunday: 1 to 5 p.m.
For more information, call 703-737-7195 or email balchlib@leesburgva.gov.
