New 'Freedom's Trial' tour offers look at black struggle

Park ranger Horace Seldon has been leading city tours through the Boston African American National Historic Site for 10 years now, and he says his newest tour is long overdue. Launched to coincide with Boston's Independence Day celebrations, the "Freedom's Trial" tour will focus on the quest for equality in Boston's 19th-century African American community.

Seldon, who taught a course for 26 years at Boston College on the history of racism in the United States, says for him the tour is about "freedom on trial" and focuses on the many ways in which Boston's black community "struggled to realize a greater fullness of equality."

"This is a very important piece of history and one that is little known," he says. "It's time we tell it."

The 90-minute walking tours begin at Faneuil Hall and wend through downtown Boston and Beacon Hill, where the historic site, a collection of pre-Civil War, black-owned buildings, is located. Education, suffrage, and religious worship will be discussed. Stops include the site of abolitionist Prince Hall's Freemason lodge for blacks and the spot where William Lloyd Garrison gave a resounding anti-slavery speech.

While Seldon offers a tour of Boston's African-American community in the 19th century, this program incorporates the earlier history and struggles of blacks in Boston. But it will also touch on modern times.

"Even now, in our 21st century, there are people for whom these freedoms are not yet realized," he said.

Seldon hopes the tour will become a permanent offering, but for now the walks are scheduled for June 30, July 2, and July 4, at 11 a.m. Reservations are recommended and may be made by calling the African American National Historic Site at 617-742-5415 .

BRIDGET SAMBURG