TORRANCE, Calif.-
Where can you find a museum dedicated to the Tuskegee Airmen? Or a walking tour about the Black Panthers? Or a park honoring the Temptations?
SoulofAmerica.com is recommending a number of cities where you’ll find these and other sites as destinations for Black History Month, which takes place in February.
The cities, and some of their attractions, are as follows:
–Atlanta, home to the birthplace, church and tombs of Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta.
–Baltimore, where attractions include the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum; the Reginald Lewis Museum, named for a lawyer, entrepreneur and philanthropist from Baltimore; and the new Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Museum.
–Birmingham, Ala., home to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and park dedicated ;to Eddie Kendricks and the Temptations.
–Chicago, where you’ll find the Du Sable Museum of African-American history, named for Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, an early settler, and the A. Philip Randolph-Pullman Porter Museum, which pays tribute to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
–Cincinnati, where you can visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
–Detroit, home to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the National Museum of the Tuskegee Airmen and the Motown Historical Museum.
–Memphis, site of the Lorraine Hotel, where King was assassinated, along with a memorial in his honor and the National Civil Rights Museum, as well as music-related attractions including the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.
–New York City, where you can visit the Apollo Theater and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture or take a Harlem Heritage Tour. Several museums around town, including the American Museum of Natural History and the International Center of Photography, have special programs in February related to black history.
–Philadelphia, home to the African-American Museum of Philadelphia; the Mother Bethel AME Church, which was founded in 1794 and began the AME denomination; and the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, founded in 1792, which claims to be the longest-running black congregation in America.
–San Francisco and Oakland, which offer the Museum of the African Diaspora and the Black Panthers Legacy Walking Tour.
–Washington, D.C., where you will find the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum and the Benjamin Banneker Memorial & Fountain.
SoulofAmerica.com offers information about these cities and three dozen more around the country, as well as Caribbean and international listings. General-interest attractions as well as black heritage sites are included on the Web site.
