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tourism   in  Maryland  and   support  the  preservation of African American historical  sites  and  culture throughout  Maryland.     We   conduct  tours   around Maryland to show its rich African American heritage.
In 1983, I began to study African American history in Maryland.    My work in tourism requires  that I research many aspects  of African American history.    Recently Professor Paul Kramer of John Hopkins requested me to conduct a tour of Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore with a focus on the civil rights period  1954-1970.    The response was overwhelming  from  out of the  state.
Preparing for the tour, I began studying the period from  1870 to 1950.    The civil rights era began in Baltimore in the  1930s when Dr. Lilly May Carroll, Carl Murphy and Clarence Mitchell Jr. began to advocate for equal rights.    Blacks in  1930s lived in inferior housing with inferior schools and could not live above Fulton Avenue in Baltimore.     Sharecropping became the new form of slavery and it still continues today.     Free blacks moved north looking for economic  freedom but they did not  find it.