Experience Black History Ahead of America's 250th Anniversary

In February 1926, a Black historian, journalist and author named Carter Godwin Woodson launched the celebration of “Negro History Week.”

Fifty years later, President Gerald Ford proclaimed Black History Month. He asked Americans “to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

In 2026, people throughout the United States will commemorate the 250th anniversary of
the country’s independence. States and cities, museums, libraries and other places will be the site of programs to recognize and recall that momentous occasion, and the role of Black history, life and culture in the nation’s and world’s story.

The specific programs will vary widely, as have the contributions and causes of Africans and people of African descent. These events take on added importance at a time when some efforts are underway to ban books and excise them from the country’s schools and libraries
and public culture.

New York and Boston

National Museum of African American History - Music exhibit — National Museum of African American History – Music exhibit. Image by Victor Block

Despite differences among projects, they share a common goal. Some offer up enticing surprises. For example, many people are unaware that Brooklyn, New York, which stood firmly with the North’s Union states in the Civil War era, had significant ties to slavery.

An exhibit in that borough has exposed that painful chapter of the past. Boston’s Museum of African American History tells the story of men and women who changed the course of America’s past in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Black Heritage Trail explores the history of the city’s Black community in the 1800s. This includes the Underground Railroad, the abolition movement, and the early struggles for civil rights.

Atlanta and Washington, DC

Lorraine Motel sign. Image by Victor Block

Atlanta, Georgia, was home to many civil rights leaders. This includes Martin Luther King, Jr.
National Historical Park, which includes several sites related to King’s life and work. He was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in 1968 while leaning over a balcony railing, speaking with Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Washington, DC, is a treasure trove of museums that relate the part that Black citizens played in U.S. history.

The centerpiece is the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution. The museum’s collection includes more than 40,000 objects, not all of which are on display.

Detroit and Virginia

Log Cabin believed to be Underground Railroad station — Log Cabin is believed to be an Underground Railroad station. Image by Victor Block

Detroit is another center of African-American lore. It was home to some of the largest hiding places, called “stations,” along the Underground Railroad route, followed by people fleeing slavery to freedom in the North.

Exhibits in the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History include the reproduction of a slave ship with life-size sculptures of people in shackles. In addition, there are more uplifting exhibits, like a case displaying products of Black inventors.

Some small towns also pay homage to pages of African-American history. Memories of the Civil War are evoked around Winchester, Virginia (population about 27,000).

The Star Fort was built by Union troops in 1863 at a place where a Confederate artillery
emplacement had stood.

The house that served as Stonewall Jackson’s headquarters contains his prayer table, an initialed prayer book and other personal and family artifacts.

Harriet Tubman Museum

Portrait of Harriet Tubman. Image by Victor Block

Any discussion of Black heroes must include Harriet Tubman. Harriet was an abolitionist who, after escaping slavery, led dozens of other enslaved people to freedom. She used a network of antislavery activists and “safe houses” along the Underground Railroad route.

In 1863, Tubman led an expedition of African-American soldiers in South Carolina, which
rescued more than 750 former slaves. Places associated with this remarkable woman are scattered far and wide.

Among exhibits at the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cape May, New Jersey, are African masks, metal shackles used on enslaved people and vintage photos.

I was intrigued by Harriet’s quote that “I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say, that I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

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Rambling Writers

Fyllis Hockman and Victor Block are a husband-wife team of experienced travel journalists who have gallivanted throughout the United States, and to nearly 80 countries around the world, and written about what they have seen, done and learned.Their articles have appeared in newspapers across the country and on websites across the Internet, and they each have won numerous writing awards. They love to explore new destinations and cultures and uncover off-the-beaten-path attractions.

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