Baltimore Heritage is happy to announce that we are launching  three new bus tours this spring: Baltimore’s Civil Rights, Baltimore’s Public Markets, and Baltimore’s Parks. Join us to explore the city and cover tons of history along the way. Spread the word–students are free!

All tours are from 10 am-12 pm and include at least one stop where the group will disembark from the bus. There will be an option to stay on the bus and receive the same information as the walking portion of these tours. If you are a wheelchair user, please contact Molly Ricks (ricks@baltimoreheritage.org) to make a reservation. 

We hope you can join us on one of the following tours and please check back for more bus tour announcements!

–Johns Hopkins, Executive Director

 

March 23, 2024: Baltimore’s Civil Rights Movement

Baltimore has an incredible history of Civil Rights activism. Join us on this bus tour to explore neighborhoods like Marble Hill, which gave rise to some of the fundamental pillars of the Civil Rights Movement. We will discover how luminaries like Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Thurgood Marshall, and our late congressman, Elijah Cummings, were at the forefront of the fight for equality for Black citizens. We’ll see sites of demonstrations against Jim Crow laws in Druid Hill Park and department stores near Lexington Market, as well as the homes of activists who waged legal battles against racist housing laws in West Baltimore. We’ll discuss the efforts to end segregation in schools and the work of Black suffragists to gain the right to vote. On March 23, we hope you’ll join us to see how the incredible organizing of people like Lillie Carroll Jackson and Rev. Harvey Johnson promoted Civil Rights not just for Baltimoreans, but for Americans across the nation.

 

April 20, 2024: Baltimore’s Public Markets

Lexington Market, Broadway Market, Hollins Market and the rest of Baltimore’s public markets have been a part of our daily life for more than 250 years. They’ve survived and thrived by adapting to change without losing their purpose: to feed people! On April 20, we will drive between four of Baltimore’s six remaining markets, including the oldest survivor, Broadway, and the newest to be renovated, Hollins. We’ll stop inside our youngest market, Northeast, which dates from 1885, to chat with a market vendor and try some traditional Baltimore coddies. We’ll start at Lexington Market and we’ll end up back there to sample one of Baltimore’s favorite fried chicken spots. Bring your appetite!

 

May 18, 2024: Baltimore’s Parks: 

In 1827, William Patterson donated land in East Baltimore for what would become our city’s first public park: Patterson Park. Seventy-five years later, the City commissioned the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm to create a plan for a municipal park system, which eventually led to the creation of a first-class network of parks that covers thousands of acres. Family estates that at one time ringed Baltimore City, including homes of the Carrolls, Rogers, Winans and other families, were converted into promenades, nature walks, ballfields, and swimming pools. On May 18, we’ll meet at the renovated Druid Hill Park Superintendent’s House and travel between some other well known parks in the western part of our city including Leakin Park and Carroll Park, stopping by some gems that are less appreciated like Lafayette Square and Leon Day Park. Join us as we learn how our city’s parks were designed and used, and how they have shaped the city we know today.

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This project has been financed in part with funds from the Charles A. and Lois H. Miller Foundation and State funds from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority, an instrumentality of the State of Maryland. However, project contents or opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority.