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Even today, African Americans are not earning their full share of tourism wealth in states like Maryland.    When you ?.ook at the tourism   industry,   few  businesses   that  are   African  American-owned benefit  from the  billions  of dollars  Maryland  contributes  to  the industry.
In  1995, I attended the White House Conference of Travel Tourism. I discovered that one of the fastest growing tourist sectors had to do with minorities,  especially African Americans.     That niche has prompted many  to  market toward that particular sector.     Cities  like Atlanta,  Detroit,  Memphis,  and Birmingham began to  feature the history  of blacks  in their advertisements  and African American tourism   grew.
Many of the historical sites are off the beaten path so extra effort must be made to market African American historical  sites.     Tourism officials have said that there is not sufficient money budgeted to feature these sites, but we, the professionals are saying otherwise.    If you go to New York, the names of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass are icons.    We should make the effort to invest in advertising these sites in Maryland.    If you look at the lingering effects of slavery—how do you tell the story so it can have a