[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 2153]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   IN HONOR OF REVEREND MICHELLE THOMAS AND HER WORK ON THE LOUDOUN 
                             FREEDOM CENTER

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 24, 2016

  Mrs. COMSTOCK. Mr. Speaker, today, February 24, 2016, a very special 
ceremony took place at which the brave Foot Soldiers who participated 
in the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery half a century ago 
were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal. Among the witnesses to 
this ceremony were a group of my constituents from the Lansdowne 
community of Loudoun County who are taking affirmative steps to build a 
new church and multi-purpose community center on 4.4 acres of land that 
includes an unmarked cemetery in which more than 40 slaves who lived 
and worked on the former Belmont Plantation are buried.
  To honor those slaves, Reverend Michelle Thomas, senior pastor at 
Holy and Whole Life Changing Ministries International, has joined with 
other Loudoun County residents to form The Loudoun Freedom Center, a 
non-profit that will use science and technology to explore the cultural 
history of Loudoun, including African-American slaves who helped build 
plantations in the area.
  Among the projects planned for The Loudoun Freedom Center are: A 
visitors' center that will tell the story of the African-American 
communities of Loudoun County; Belmont and Coton (Lansdowne) African 
burial grounds that will preserve, protect and restore the sacred 
burial grounds on the former Belmont and Coton plantations; a Loudoun-
specific genome project; a virtual DNA extraction laboratory; a 
research library and genealogy hub; and the Loudoun Freedom Chapel, a 
place to reflect and meditate.
  Just as it was divine inspiration that caused so many faithful 
Americans of different races and backgrounds to join together in unity 
and in hope at the Edmund Pettus Bridge last year, so too, it is divine 
inspiration for this diverse group of citizens in Loudoun County to 
join together in unity and in hope on the site of an unmarked slave 
cemetery on Belmont Ridge Road.
  Reverend Thomas has said of the ambitious project that it is a 
crusade to reclaim the property under a banner of unity. ``No matter 
what your race, your color, your creed . . . we all want the same 
things. We all want to be honored. We all want to have hope for the 
future.''
  I pray that they will be successful in their endeavors and that they 
will inspire the residents of Loudoun County and my Congressional 
District for years to come.

                          ____________________