Boston's Skyline

It’s Black History Month, and one of our favorite cities features many attractions perfect for black history.

The city is Boston, pictured here. There’s a lot to love about Boston ad many reasons for Boston educational tours. Visiting its historic sites puts you in the middle of the American Revolution and the first brave steps of our country as an independent nation. It’s cliche, but seriously, history comes alive here. Sometimes literally – as you can view reenactments of several historical events and of legendary people, like the Boston Massacre and Paul Revere.

Many of Boston’s historic sites dating to the American Revolution are organized in a red-brick route known as the Freedom Trail. It’s on this self or expert-guided tour that you’ll visit Boston Common, Old North Church (where Paul Revere’s message was declared by that famous lantern light), the Boston Massacre Site, and all of the attractions listed at the bottom of this post.

Boston has a wonderful African-American heritage as well. The first blacks in the city were slaves, but by 1700 a free black community had emerged in the north end. By the census in 1790, not one slave was reported.

Though it wasn’t easy, the black population in Boston set to work building their community, carving a place for their children and their children’s children. The Black Heritage Trail celebrates those efforts, memorializing the African Meeting House, a school, and prominent residences. The historic tour describes each of them and the fascinating history of the black community in eighteenth century Boston. The tour continues inside at the African Meeting House and Abiel Smith School.

These are two Boston tours perfect for educational tours, but the city has so much more to offer as well. The Freedom and Black Heritage Trails are only the beginning.

Attractions: Boston Freedom Trail

• Boston Common
• Massachusetts State House
• Park Street Church
• Granary Burying Ground
• King’s Chapel and Burying Ground
• First Public School Site and Ben Franklin Statue
• Former Site of the Old Corner Bookstore
• Old South Meeting House
• Old State House
• Boston Massacre Site
• Faneuil Hall
• Paul Revere House
• Old North Church
• Copp’s Hill Burying Ground
• USS Constitution and Charlestown Navy Yard
• Bunker Hill Monument

Photo by ReneS on Flickr.