They are all part of St. Louis’s rich Black history. In 1719, when French and Spanish traders arrived, they went back and reported stories of free Blacks living among the Indians. As the Mississippi Valley changed flags from Spanish, French and American, Blacks were parts of its development. From the earliest recorded accounts through the end of the nineteenth century, Blacks in St. Louis were blazing trails.

Even though Missouri was a slave state, the Black population built churches, organized Underground Railroad stops and provided relief efforts for the thousands of Blacks displaced by the Civil War. St. Louis had a large “free” Black population known as the “Colored Aristocracy” that rivaled New Orleans or Savannah in size and stature. They built lasting monuments to their culture and a way of life. In 1847, the ten year odyssey of Dred Scott started at the Old Court House and ended with the landmark case that further divided the country that it helped fuel the Civil War. In the 1890’s St. Louis Blacks set the tone as to how America spent its leisure time with the birth of ragtime and fancy clothes.

St. Louis Blacks have made their marks in theater and stage, tennis, music, track and field, opera and almost every other area of American culture.

Some of America’s most enduring folk legends come out of just seventeen square blocks of the city. This three hour interactive tour has actors in costume and character who portray some of St. Louis’s colorful personalities that left their mark on history.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll have a whole new perspective on Black History. We guarantee it. So we invite you to join us on our magical sojourn into the past.

Tour features include site where mulatto Francis McIntosh was burned that shocked pre-civil war America...Where Frankie shot Johnny...Where Josephine Baker and Maya Angelou lived and Arthur Ashe learned to play tennis..The Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing, the only fully documented Underground Railroad site located in a former slave state. And much, much more.