Genealogy of a Walking Tour
I first met Asha in Detroit in June 2018 at the Allied Media Conference. She attended a workshop about Lifting as They Climbed, a guidebook mapping the histories of Black women on Chicago’s South Side that I co-wrote with Essence McDowell. At the end of the workshop, we exchanged information after I learned that Asha was a student at Barnard College where I would be a researcher-in-residence at the Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW) starting in the fall of 2018. Because Asha had demonstrated an interest in Black women’s history and guided tours, we decided to work together to create a walking tour focused on some radical Black women in Harlem.
Starting in September 2018, Asha worked as a research assistant at BCRW and together we began a process to map some locations and histories of Black women in Harlem. The first task was to share a list of books and articles with Asha so that she could begin to read and learn about some key women in Harlem’s history. Next came short summaries written to distill some of the key aspects of the lives of these women. Together we discussed how the women’s lives fit into particular historical contexts and what specific locations should be featured to highlight their contributions. Then, we embarked on a journey to find images and photographs of women and locations that could be included in a publication to be shared as part of the tour. After several weeks, we began to map the walking tour by visiting particular locations and deciding which ones made sense to include on a walking tour. Along the way, we participated in other walking tours together and separately.
On April 7th, 2019, Asha led the first radical Black women of Harlem walking tour with over 35 people in attendance. I was there as a co-facilitator and cheerleader. It was a wonderful experience to see weeks of work come to life through the stories shared during the tour. The reception from the tour participants was terrific and I am exceedingly proud of Asha’s work on this project.
The radical Black women of Harlem walking tour is a collective project that includes key contributions by Asha. We are also indebted to Arrianna Planey for creating a physical map of the locations and sites on the tour and to Neta Bomani for designing the beautiful publication that we are now making available to the Barnard community and broader public.
It has been a true pleasure to work with Asha over the past few months. During those months, she read a lot, wrote things based on those readings, had to do some additional research, participated in a couple of walking tours, attended events focused on some of the women, watched and listened to some media programs and had to learn the geography of Harlem by mapping the sites. All of this labor has been brought together in this walking tour.
Both Asha and I encourage every student, faculty and staff at Barnard College to use the guide to explore these histories of some Black women in Harlem. I personally encourage other educators to incorporate the creation of walking tours in your curriculum. There’s no better way for students to demonstrate mastery of different types of knowledge and to develop some concrete skills in terms of writing, storytelling, researching, mapping and public speaking.
At a time when more people are talking about the importance of uplifting and underscoring Black women’s intellectual, social and political work, we offer the radical Black women of Harlem walking tour as one contribution to this effort. Get some friends together and go explore!
Download the Radical Black Women of Harlem Walking Tour Guide here.
Image credit: Matt Harvey http://www.tb-credit.ru/zaimy-na-kartu.html http://www.tb-credit.ru/zaem.html