D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a bill Thursday that would establish a memorial on federal land in D.C. honoring the enslaved individuals who may have arrived at the Georgetown waterfront in the 18th century. Norton’s Waterfront Enslaved Voyages Memorial Act aims to commemorate that painful history.

Georgetown, founded decades before the District of Columbia was formed, existed at a prime location on the northern section of the Potomac River that made it a busy commercial port — and potentially a stop along the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Local historians and researchers are currently investigating whether slave ships that docked in the “North Potomac,” according to records, docked specifically at Georgetown. For example, Jim Johnston, a local historian and author, tells DCist in an email that there are no newspaper records of Georgetown being used as a slave trading port.

“Newspapers were about the only way for planters to know when ships arrived at colonial ports,” Johnston says. “This is not to say one can rule out the possibility that slave ships didn’t dock in Georgetown.”

Johnston says he supports efforts to recognize the neglected history of Black Georgetown, but adds that “better proof is needed with respect to this claim.”

Norton’s announcement doesn’t specify where exactly it would be located, but this map of federal land in D.C. shows some viable options.

She introduced the bill just before Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the day in 1865 when Union troops freed enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. (The bill making it a national holiday got Congressional approval this week and is now headed to Biden’s desk to become official.)

“Juneteenth celebrates the culmination of the long struggle for freedom from bondage in the United States,” Norton said in a statement. “This monumental event prompts us to reflect on the past and look to the future. This bill provides for the creation of a powerful marker of truth-telling and remembrance.”

If the bill passes, the organizers behind the Georgetown African American Historic Landmark Project would be tasked with planning and establishing the memorial. The group writes on its website about the first enslaved Africans to disembark at Georgetown’s waterfront in 1732, and explains that by the 1800s, a diverse population of free and enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, and rich and poor whites comprised Georgetown’s thriving community:

“The African American community became self-sustaining within the city boundaries.  There were doctors, skilled artisans, tradesmen and entrepreneurs. There were churches built to serve as spiritual, social and educational support systems. There were the enslaved tending to the needs of the enslaver, providing the free labor without recognition or pay, which enabled them to prosper and become wealthy … The project corrects and adds to the accuracy of Georgetown’s historical records and commemorates African Americans’ presence in an attempt to learn from their collective experiences.”

In Norton’s statement introducing the bill to the House, she says that by 1761, an estimated 1,475 enslaved people had been brought to Georgetown. Those who survived the horrific conditions of the Middle Passage were marched from the C&O Canal through tunnels to an auction block on M Street, where they were sold, according to her statement.

“We must not hide from this history. The enslaved individuals, known and unknown, who disembarked at the Georgetown waterfront after forced migration, rest at the core of our nation’s shared history,” Norton said. “Let us honor the personhood of these individuals, who were repeatedly assumed to have none, so that they will never be forgotten.”

This story has been updated to clarify that research is being done on whether Georgetown’s waterfront was a specific stop for slave trading ships along the Potomac River.