Black History Becoming A Star Tourist Attraction

Although African American tourism is up in general, not everyone is reaping the rewards.

Colonial Williamsburg, for instance, recently opened Great Hopes Plantation, built in part to attract more minority visitors, spokesman Tim Andrews said. The 10-acre farm depicts the lives of poor white farmers as well as free and enslaved blacks.

Although the public has responded well to Williamsburg's new offering, Andrews said, a disproportionately large number of visitors are white.

The problem, critics say, is that Williamsburg -- which for decades had an all-white cast of characters even though the town itself was historically 51 percent black -- offers a sanitized view of slavery.

Andrews said that in 1979, Williamsburg was the first mainstream history site to provide a glimpse of 18th-century black life. Over the years, he said, the reaction from minority visitors has become more positive.

Still, he said, just as the battles are not bloody and old Shields Tavern serves skim milk lattes, the scenes of slavery are sanitized to appeal to an audience of sunblock-slathered families stopping by on their way to the beach.

"The balance between historical authenticity and providing a compelling and enjoyable experience is a balance we struggle with every day here," he said. "We feel we actually strike that balance pretty well."

Although African Americans applaud more realistic portrayals of slavery, many also want to see uplifting aspects of their history, said James O. Horton, a professor of history and American studies at George Washington University.

"People focus so much on the way in which slaves were victimized," said Horton, an author and contributor to books and a documentary on African American history. "However, no human being is simply a victim, and when you start to see the way in which slaves resisted, it's a different situation entirely."

Washington, the tour guide in Hampton, said her most popular offering follows the eastern route of the Underground Railroad, winds up the East Coast into Canada and ends at Harriet Tubman's grave in Upstate New York.

Other tours take visitors through Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, highlighting the history of jazz and blues. A civil rights tour takes travelers through Alabama and Georgia. Other journeys explore the culture of the black Seminoles of Florida, the black cowboys of the Old West, and the historic churches and theaters of Harlem.

All offer a rare glimpse of history through the eyes of blacks, said Louise and Donald Ellis of Fort Washington, who have taken several of Washington's tours.

Although they consider themselves history buffs, they tend to avoid such places as Mount Vernon and Williamsburg, they said. They prefer to learn about the Colonial era by visiting such places as the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, a more solemn venue in which the photos of limp men dangling from trees capture the true horror of what many blacks had to deal with and overcome, they said.

While on the Underground Railroad tour, Donald Ellis, 72, marveled at the ingenuity of the runaway slaves who navigated hundreds of miles of wilderness to reach the Canadian border, marking the trees so they always knew which way was north and communicating through quilts made in various patterns.

"They went through woods and trails and dells with no food and no water," he said. "See, that's the history that's not written about. And that's the history I spend my money to go and learn."