Bus tours exploring the Black history of Buffalo and Niagara Falls will start this Saturday to coincide with February’s Black History Month.
The Buffalo African American History Museum launched Together As One: the Journey Continues, Thursday - an initiative centralizing Black history exhibits and events taking place in the city.
Now in it's third year, founder of the Buffalo African American Museum, Clifford Bell, said Together as One started as a way to get more African Americans to Buffalo’s museums and historical sites.
"These museums got together and all of them have some kind of African American information. And our concern in doing this was that their facilities were not being used enough by African American people," Bell said.
"You've got the Science Museum you've got the History Museum and others. We just don't visit them enough," he added.
Kicking off Saturday Feb. 1, the weekly bus tours will visit different tour stops each week, with the first honing in on Booker T. Washington's visits to the Buffalo area.
"We're focusing on Booker T. Washington and the role of Teddy Roosevelt, which really began the Niagara movement," said Gabrielle Graham from the Buffalo Museum of Science, one of the partner organizations in the project. "Booker T. Washington is the big name, but who are the people in our community that he was speaking to? And what did he do? How was he invited?," Graham added, hinting at some of the stories participants can hear on the tour.
Tours start at 10 a.m. every Saturday throughout February and leave from the Buffalo Museum of Science. Tickets can be booked online at the Buffalo African American Museum’s website.
Partner organizations with the project include the Michigan Street African American
Heritage Corridor, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, Niagara
Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo
Black Achievers Museum, Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, Open Buffalo,
Castellani Art Museum of Niagara, and The Buffalo History Museum.
