10 Black Heritage Sites to Visit in 2021

It's easier than most folks know to visit destinations and sites, within the U.S. and beyond, that document the panorama of contributions made by influential Black statesmen, activists, abolitionists, soldiers, businesspeople, indigenous groups and artistic leaders to American and global history.

In fact, there are Black historical sites in nearly every part of the U.S. and throughout the Caribbean. In the U.S., many of these stories are shared exclusively during Black History Month, which begins in February.

However Black people's contributions to global civilization and culture are so extensive as to warrant year-round recognition. In the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better."

The Colored Musicians Club was formed as Buffalo Local 533 of the American Federation of Musicians in 1917 by Black musicians after all-white Local 43 refused to admit Black members.

The club found its permanent home in 1934 at 145 Broadway. In addition to a union hall, it was a sanctuary where professional Black musicians could socialize and rehearse. Union members opened an upstairs social club where musicians gathered after finishing nighttime performances.

During its tenure, the club hosted performances and jam sessions that during its long tenure featured world-famous jazz artists Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. The club is described today as the country's only operating Black jazz club.

Based in a Neoclassical building constructed by famed design firm Guilbert and Betelle and built in 1927 through funds from General Motors chairman Pierre S. du Pont, Howard High School was Delaware's first school to offer Black students a high school education.

The school was directly associated with the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision that ruled public school racial segregation unconstitutional. Howard High was cited in Belton v. Gebhart, one of the five cases the Supreme Court placed under the aegis of "Brown."

Notable faculty and graduates include teacher and early feminist writer Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Belton v. Gebhart lawyer Louis L. Redding, artist Edward L. Loper, Sr., jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown and former Delaware State Senator Herman Holloway.

Frederick Douglass posed as a free Black sailor to escape slavery in 1838. He became a compelling orator, a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York and an author, diplomat and publisher. During the Civil War Douglass encouraged President Abraham Lincoln to recruit Black soldiers, tipping the conflict to the North's favor.

His 20-room colonial mansion is located atop a 50-foot hill on eight acres encompassing the original estate. The house has been restored to its 1895 appearance and features the original possessions of Douglass and other household members.

Founded in 1866 by former slaves, the historically Black Lincolnville Historic District neighborhood is associated with several significant events in the city's African American history.

Southern segregation between 1890 and 1910 spurred the growth of Black-owned and -operated businesses in the district. In 1964 St. Augustine became a focal point for the Civil Rights Movement as neighborhood churches and businesses functioned as meeting places and the bases from peaceful protest marches began.

Lincolnville architecture features St. Augustine's highest concentration of Victorian-era buildings, including the Italian Gothic St. Mary's Missionary Baptist Church and the Gothic Revival style St. Paul's AME Church. Many were constructed by black carpenters and builders.

During the first half of the 20th century, South Rampart Street was a flourishing African American entertainment and commercial district of theaters, live music venues saloons, and shops.

The "back of town" district was a key neighborhood in the early development of jazz music, which originated in New Orleans. The third floor the Eagle Saloon building is believed by locals to be the location of the Odd Fellows ballroom, where pioneer jazzmen including Buddy Bolden performed.

The Iroquois Theater was a vaudeville and silent movie theater, that also featured jazz and blues performers who accompanied stage acts and films. The Karnofsky Tailor Shop and House were owned and operated by the Karnofskys, the Jewish family who befriended fatherless Louis Armstrong during his youth and gave the jazz music giant an advance to purchase his first coronet.

Proclaimed as a national monument in 2013 by President Barack Obama, the site's structures and landscape are closely associated with Harriett Tubman, the abolitionist and activist who escaped slavery in 1849. Tubman subsequently made an estimated 13 missions to free 70 enslaved Black Americans via the "Underground Railroad."

Tubman also served as an armed scout and spy for the Northern forces during the Civil War, and during the conflict in 1863 became the first woman to lead an armed assault. The monument site includes the Jacobs Jackson Home Site, one of the first Underground Railroad safe houses, Bezel Church, Stewart's Canal, which provided an escape route for slaves, and the James Cook Home Site, where the enslaved Tubman was hired out as a child.

Black Americans served with honor and distinction in every U.S. conflict. In 1877, 400 Black soldiers fought alongside white soldiers at the Battle of Saratoga, a pivotal clash during the Revolutionary War. Superior American forces compelled the British Army to surrender, ultimately convincing France to enter the war, ensuring the American victory.

Virginia's most-visited state park was built by an all-Black regiment of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), created I the 1930s by President Franklin Roosevelt to provide jobs to three million young men, including 250,000 African-Americans.

CCC's Company 1371 constructed more than 20 miles of trails, drained marshes, built cabins, and planted trees and shrubs for what was then known as Seashore State Park and was later renamed First Landing State Park.

Despite building the park, southern segregationists barred Black citizens from using it. In 1951, local African-Americans filed suit against the Virginia Conservation Commission for being denied entrance to the park and in 1955, state officials closed the park rather than integrate it. The park was reopened to all citizens in 1965 regardless of skin color.

Accompong Maroon Village, located in the mountains of western Jamaica bordering the northern parishes of St. James and Trelawny, is the island's largest Maroon community.

The Maroons' origins date back to 1655 when the Caribbean's Taino indigenous people joined Africans who'd escaped Spanish captors to create settlements in hilly, densely vegetated and remote parts of the island, away from English colonial slave traders.

By 1739 the Maroons had fought the British to a draw and signed treaties granting them rights including autonomy. Village tours are available and a festival is held annually to commemorate the signing of the peace treaty with the British.

The Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center opened in 2018 to document the stories of Black freedom seekers who risked their lives to escape slavery and oppression by journeying north to Niagara Falls as one of their final stops before crossing the border into Canada.

The escaped Black Americans' plight and ultimate liberation are related in several exhibits that document this story of triumph over adversity.