精东影业

On an overcast morning in early May, a group of visitors mills around the corner of North Des Plaines Street and Randolph Street in downtown Chicago waiting for a tour guide. When the guide arrives, rather than heading for top-billed sites, like Millennium Park or the John Hancock Center, the group will kick off at Haymarket Square, wind through the historic Pullman neighborhood, and visit the Union Stock Yard Gate鈥攈istorical sites central to the labor movement in Chicago ().

Led by the , Chicago鈥檚 offer a 鈥減eople鈥檚 history鈥� of the Windy City and an alternative to the more traditional guided walking or bus tours chock-full of nationalist monuments, displays of institutional or monarchical power, and squares and statues named for White men. A growing number of tours like this one have emerged in cities across the globe in recent years, uncovering local labor histories, Black histories, or other stories of the historical actors often left out of our standard textbooks and tourist experiences. 

The term 鈥減eople鈥檚 history鈥� was popularized by historian Howard Zinn in his 1980 book , which revisits U.S. history from the perspective of Indigenous Americans, enslaved Africans, and the working classes from the arrival of Columbus to the 20th century. Zinn calls people鈥檚 history 鈥渁 history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people鈥檚 movements of resistance,鈥� and his text and those that have followed in its tradition tell stories of groups that are underrepresented in curricula, pop culture, and tourist experiences, like city and museum tours. 

These histories include working-class histories and the histories of marginalized groups, like migrants, the queer community, and people of color鈥攁nd all the ways these groups overlap. In the United States and Europe, LGBTQ+-inclusive histories have begun to be . But inclusion is often met with pushback, and anti-LGBTQ+ curriculum laws . Meanwhile, people of color are under-represented at every level of classroom education, from the to the . 

Representation is also uneven in the tourism sector. In 2020, that 鈥淏lack people are under-represented at all levels within the travel industry,鈥� including destination management organizations, travel-related retail and financial services brands, and travel press. According to data from Zippia, of travel journalists are White, meaning the stories that we read about travel are also .

Organizations that offer tourist experiences rooted in people鈥檚 histories seek to disrupt these narratives. 鈥淭he story of the labor movement, and especially the thousands of events that have built this middle class, are usually not taught well or taught at all,鈥� says Larry Spivack. As president of the Illinois Labor History Society, Spivack says his organization鈥檚 mission has been to reclaim the narrative and 鈥渢ell the story of the profound significance of labor history in the Illinois region.鈥�

Its Labor History Tours are part of this work. The tours are made-to-order for local community groups, union conventions, visiting researchers, or tourists interested in learning more about Chicago鈥檚 workers movements, and can be led as walking or bus tours. Spivack, who has been leading tours since the 鈥�90s, long before he became president of the organization in 2006, says everyone who joins him learns something new.

鈥淲hen people find out that the benefits inured to them in workplaces are from people鈥檚 history, organizing, collective action鈥攖hey鈥檙e shocked,鈥� he says. The experience also reminds visitors that everyday people like themselves are historical actors with the power to shape the future. Spivack says visitors often leave the tour wanting to get engaged in their union or organization after hearing the stories of Mother Jones and Lucy Parsons, Chicago-based labor organizers who Spivack says 鈥渨ere part of this historical collective action that gave us a much better society.鈥�

鈥淧eople are interested in the idea that history is created by people, and that we can be part of that,鈥� says Kathryn Lloyd, senior director of programs and interpretation at the in New York City. Like the Illinois Labor History Society, the Tenement Museum is committed to introducing visitors to understudied histories. Its guided tours through preserved tenement apartments and neighborhoods on the Lower East Side center on the waves of working-class European, Jewish, and Black migrants who lived in tenement buildings in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 this idea of looking at the stories of people who weren鈥檛 considered important in their time, and really lifting up those stories to see them as essential stories for understanding U.S. history,鈥� says Lloyd of the Tenement Museum鈥檚 guiding mission. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people developed a heightened sense of living through history, which has driven visitors to the Tenement Museum since it resumed programming following pandemic closures. 鈥淲e really hope to have people come away with the sense that they are also part of history, and we can all be active participants in shaping the future,鈥� says Lloyd.

By encouraging visitors to see themselves as historical actors and raising tough questions about who has been left out of commonly told histories, these organizations also tie their work to current discussions about social justice in tourism, the classroom, and out on the street. 鈥淭he work that we鈥檙e doing is all about the history of resistance against racism, anti-imperialism, Black Power, activism,鈥� says Tony Warner, founder of , an organization offering tours, educational talks, and films about Black histories in London. 

Warner founded Black History Walks in 2007 after taking several walking tours around London, where Black histories were conspicuously absent. 鈥淚 thought, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 ridiculous. There must be some Black history here,鈥欌�� recalls Warner. Based on research in historical sources and oral history interviews conducted with family and neighborhood sources, Warner developed , one of London鈥檚 oldest neighborhoods, highlighting the heretofore hidden history of African people, influences, and resources that led to British colonial wealth. 鈥淚t was things that I鈥檇 seen, things that my family experienced, and also things like reading books,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hen you bring it to life [on the tour].鈥�

What was meant to be a single event has grown beyond Warner鈥檚 wildest dreams. 鈥淚 had two people on the very first walk,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 was going to call it a day after that. But they liked it so much. They said I should do it again.鈥� Black History Walks now offers 12 walking tours through different London neighborhoods, a , and even a . Its bus tours accommodate up to 72 people at a time, and the river cruise often sells out at 150.

Warner says his organization鈥檚 programming has grown more popular with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and particularly in the wake of the George Floyd protests that rocked the United States and rippled across the globe in the summer of 2020. 鈥淲hen BLM came along, [that momentum] just kind of melded into what we鈥檙e doing already.鈥�

The Tenement Museum has also been ramping up programming around Black history. Its initiative started by developing a new neighborhood walking tour in spring 2019 that highlights Black history on the Lower East Side going as far back as the mid-17th century. 

鈥淥ne of the common misconceptions is that Black New Yorkers or African Americans came [to New York City] during the Great Migration,鈥� the project鈥檚 lead researcher Lauren O鈥橞rien . But a tour through the Lower East Side shows that 鈥淏lack New Yorkers have been a part of the city since its founding.鈥�

For these organizations, part of their work is challenging the standard sources used to write histories and working with and giving back to local communities, descendants, or folks otherwise affected by their work in both history-telling and tourism. The Tenement Museum exemplifies this approach in its recent work on Black histories, partnering with descendants of Black tenement residents; Black history institutions, like the ; and Black artists, like , to develop museum programming.

In London, Black History Walks pursues similar partnerships, offers free programming, and keeps tour prices as low as possible鈥攁t least one-third less expensive than the average city tour, according to Warner鈥攖o ensure its work remains accessible. The organization also installs plaques to mark famous Black people and spaces around London, like one commemorating Black , of a former office in south London earlier this year. 

Similarly, in Chicago, the Illinois Labor History Society is overseeing the restoration of a mural , which the society initially commissioned in 1974. These initiatives make Black and working-class history more visible.

In his text, Zinn embraces this type of engagement and activist scholarship, writing that people鈥檚 histories 鈥渓ean in a certain direction,鈥� opposite dominant historiographies. With commemorative plaques, murals, and people鈥檚 history tours, locals and visitors are invited to see destinations in new ways, disrupt historically exclusionary narratives, and become active participants in shaping a more just future. 

Many other organizations do similar work, including the , San Francisco-based , and Seattle-based , which offer tours on Chicanx, queer, and Indigenous histories, respectively. Published guidebooks, like  and  also support self-guided treks steeped in radical history. 

鈥淲e see a lot of tourists that come to us because this feels like history that you can鈥檛 get in textbooks, and I think that鈥檚 happening all over the world,鈥� says Lloyd. 鈥淲e have this sense that we can get deeper histories by thinking about our own stories, what is represented, what is not, and why.鈥�

CORRECTION: This article was updated at 10:25 a.m. PDT on June 7, 2022 to correct the photo credits. Read our corrections policy here.