Between 5th and 6th Street on Chapel Alley, a 1.17-acre parcel holds the Laboring Sons Memorial Grounds you have reached. This ground was established in 1851 by the Laboring Sons Beneficial Society as a cemetery for free blacks in the city. You can feel the weight of history here: in 1949 the cemetery was given to the City of Frederick, which destroyed the grounds and created a whites-only park.
That erasure was uncovered in 1999. In 2000 the city promised to make amends, and in 2001 the site was dedicated as the Laboring Sons Memorial Grounds; construction on the new memorial grounds finished in 2003. The park takes up most of the block, surrounded by sidewalks on three sides.
The entrance on the side bordering 6th Street is marked by a metal archway. Walk the paths that bisect the site and they lead toward a hill in the center, where a monument stands listing the names of the identifiable dead buried on the grounds, along with a brief history. The metal archway on 6th Street, the crossing sidewalks, and the central hill and monument lie just ahead of you.