African American art is one of the great achievements of American culture, reflecting generations of creativity, resilience, innovation, and artistic vision. Our private tours explore the artists, collectors, patrons, and institutions that helped shape this remarkable tradition while examining the historical and cultural forces that inspired their work.

Depending on your interests, journeys may include museums and galleries throughout Washington, Baltimore, and the Mid-Atlantic. Together we’ll explore how artists responded to changing ideas about identity, community, landscape, abstraction, spirituality, and social change while contributing to the broader story of American art.

Baltimore has played a central role in African American history from the colonial period to the present day. This thoughtfully designed journey explores neighborhoods, churches, schools, businesses, historic sites, and cultural institutions while examining the people whose lives transformed the city and the nation. Highlights may include the Caulkers’ Houses, Pennsylvania Avenue, Douglass place, Fells Point, churches, memorials, and other locations significant to Baltimore’s African American heritage. Each experience is tailored to your group’s interests and paced to encourage thoughtful conversation and discovery.

Long before U Street became known for nightlife, it was one of the most important centers of Black culture, business, and community life in the United States. Explore the neighborhood once celebrated as “Black Broadway,” where theaters, clubs, churches, businesses, schools, and civic institutions flourished during an era of segregation. This was the Washington of Duke Ellington, jazz clubs, and elegant theaters—but also of entrepreneurs, educators, activists, artists, and generations of Washingtonians who built institutions of their own. On this walking tour, we’ll explore the people and places that shaped U Street and the surrounding neighborhood: its remarkable African American heritage, architecture, and community institutions; the cultural world that produced Duke Ellington; the impact of segregation and the struggle for civil rights; the upheaval following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968; and the neighborhood’s subsequent decline, preservation, redevelopment, and transformation. Along the way, we’ll consider a larger question: How does a neighborhood preserve its identity while the city around it changes? This isn’t simply a tour of famous names and historic buildings. It’s the story of a community that created culture, opportunity, and beauty in a city where racial barriers constrained all three—and of the complicated legacy that remains on U Street today. Possible highlights include: the historic U Street corridor, the Howard Theatre area, the African American Civil War Memorial, landmark churches and cultural institutions, Duke Ellington’s neighborhood, Black Broadway, Ben’s Chili Bowl, and sites associated with the 1968 uprising and U Street’s later revival.

Tour Description

Long before Washington became the nation’s capital, Georgetown was a thriving port on the Potomac River. Today, its streets preserve more than 270 years of history, where elegant townhouses, hidden gardens, historic churches, and cobblestone lanes tell stories of commerce, politics, diplomacy, and everyday life.

Our private walking tours explore Georgetown through multiple lenses, including architecture, preservation, African American history, international diplomacy, literary history, and the neighborhood’s surprising role during the Cold War. Along the way, we’ll examine how Georgetown evolved from a bustling tobacco port into one of America’s most celebrated historic districts.