As the country prepares to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, stories are missing in between the celebrations of fireworks or the reenactments at Yorktown. What’s missing is the story of how America was not built on just one set of hands. It was built, defended, escaped, sung about, and ultimately redefined by Black Americans whose names don’t always make the commemorative banners.
This round-up is a different kind of America250 itinerary. It follows the shipyards where Frederick Douglass learned his trade, the churches where the Underground Railroad met beneath the floors, and the museums built specifically so these stories would be more than footnotes.
Some of these stops predate 1776, and others are still being written. Together, they prove that Black history isn’t a companion narrative to the American story. It is the American story.
Boston, MA: The Black Sailor Who Set Off The American Revolution
Crispus Attucks was a brave sailor and dockworker of African and Native American descent. Attucks, who was born into slavery and later freed, led a crowd toward King Street to protest British taxes on March 5, 1770. The British soldiers panicked and fired into the crowd. Crispus Attucks was among five men killed, and their deaths became known as the Boston Massacre.
Defending the soldiers in the subsequent trial, John Adams painted Crispus Attucks and the rest of those killed as aggressors to justify the killing. He played to the jury’s prejudices about race and class, describing those in the crowd as “a motley rabble of saucy boys, Negroes, and mulattos, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars.”
Adams’ argument led to an acquittal for the Captain and all but two of the soldiers.
Then, in the 1800s, abolitionists in Boston held up the death of Crispus Attucks as the first martyr of the American Revolution. Attucks is celebrated as a hero who fought for freedom. Today, you can visit the Boston Massacre Site on the Freedom Trail, marked by cobblestones in the street where he gave his life.
Another quick tour worth putting on the itinerary is the Black Heritage Trail, which explores Boston’s 19th-century Black community. The trail is about 1.5 miles long and sheds light on the Black communities that lived on the North Slope of Beacon Hill from the late 1700s through the 1800s.
Philadelphia, PA: Home To The Oldest Piece of Land Continuously Owned By African Americans
Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church is a historic church in Philadelphia. Founded in 1794 by Bishop Richard Allen, it is the mother church of the AME denomination. It stands on the oldest piece of land continuously owned by African Americans in the U.S.
Allen purchased his freedom, became a Methodist preacher, and led a growing community of Black worshipers in Philadelphia. Then, racial discrimination at St. George’s MEC, including a forced-seating incident where Black people were only allowed to sit in the balcony, led Allen, Absalom Jones, and others to form a new worship community.
The church was dedicated in 1794. By 1816, Allen united several Black Methodist congregations to form the AME Church, the first independent Black denomination in the country.
Mother Bethel still stands today. It was a key stop on the Underground Railroad. A hidden tunnel was used to shelter freedom seekers safely.
Baltimore, MD: Where Frederick Douglass Learned To Read, Build, And Break Free
Baltimore is Frederick Douglass’s origin story. He was sent here as a boy, taught his letters in secret by a slaveholder’s wife who wasn’t supposed to teach him at all, and trained as a ship caulker in the Fell’s Point shipyards before escaping north in 1838. He returned decades later to build a row of houses for Black renters that still stand today.
Head to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, two blocks from the Inner Harbor. It’s the largest African American museum in the state, holding artifacts spanning four centuries of Maryland history, and its exhibits regularly revisit Douglass’s Baltimore years alongside the broader story of Black Marylanders.
Then, head to Fell’s Point for the Frederick Douglass–Isaac Myers Maritime Park Museum. It doubles as a tribute to Isaac Myers, who founded one of the country’s first Black-owned shipyards nearby. A few blocks over, Douglass Place on Dallas Street is the row of homes Douglass built for Black tenants after the Civil War, a quiet, largely unmarked reminder of what he chose to do with his freedom once he had it.
Savannah, GA: Explore The First African Baptist Church In The United States
The oldest Black Baptist congregation in North America is in Savannah. Reverend George Leile founded the church at 23 Montgomery Street in 1773. In 1782, rather than risk re-enslavement, Pastor Leile left with the British when Savannah was evacuated, migrating to Jamaica. He became the first American missionary, 30 years before Adoniram Judson left for Burma. Pastor Leile was also the first Baptist missionary in Jamaica.
Under the leadership of its third pastor, Reverend Andrew C. Marshall, the congregation acquired the property on which the present sanctuary stands. Reverend Marshall also organized the first Black Sunday School in North America and changed the church’s name from “First Colored Baptist” to “First African Baptist.” The sanctuary was completed in 1859 under the direction of the church’s fourth pastor, Reverend William J. Campbell.
The building still holds remnants of the past. The light fixtures, baptismal pool, and balcony pews are all original to the church. Enslaved Africans made them and are nailed into the floors. Visitors will notice Semitic languages written on the outside of the pews, including Cursive Hebrew, Ethiopian Amharic Ge’ez, and Ancient Aramaic from the 1800’s that’s no longer spoken.
New Orleans: The Square That Established The Birthplace Of American Jazz
Long before the American Revolution, New Orleans was a hub for enslaved and free Black people. Enslaved Africans were given Sundays off in a designated area called Congo Square. Here, they kept their African culture alive through drum circles, dances, and trade. This space, where jazz’s roots took hold, is known today and can be visited.
In the historic Tremé neighborhood, Saint Augustine Catholic Church is the oldest Black Catholic parish in the United States. It was established in 1841 by free people of color who also bought pews for enslaved people to attend Mass. Treme itself is considered the oldest continuously occupied Black neighborhood in the country, and it’s worth wandering beyond Congo Square. It’s a key stop on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail. Famous members include the civil rights pioneer Homer Plessy and jazz icon Sidney Bechet.
Insider Tip: Congo Square hosts a free, open drum circle most Sundays around 3 p.m., organized by the Congo Square Preservation Society.
