Introduction

The Museum of African American History is located inside what was once the Abiel Smith School House, and also includes the African Meeting House in the neighboring building. The Museum works in partnership with the Boston African American National Historical Site, the City of Boston, and private property owners to promote the history of Boston's free African American community in Beacon Hill in the 19th century.

A map of the Black Heritage Trail, a 1.6 mile trail within the Boston African American National Heritage Site that contains key landmarks and structures dating back to the presence of Boston's free African American community on Beacon Hill in the 19th century. It includes homes, schools, businesses and churches, all containing stories of the struggle against slavery and segregation in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The past home of John J. Smith (1820-1906), who was a leading abolitionist and recruiting officer for the all-black 5th Cavalry in the Civil War. He also served on the Massachusetts House of Representatives for three terms.

Beacon Hill is a neighborhood of Boston that was once home to Boston’s free African American community in the 19^th century, the largest black community in the country at the time. To commemorate the presence of this community and the rich and often tumultuous history of racial segregation in Boston as well as America at large, the neighborhood hosts the Boston African American National Historic Site, which includes the Black Heritage Trail that features notable landmarks and buildings once occupied by the African American community of 19^th century Boston including the African Meeting House and Abiel Smith School

These pre-Civil War sites located within the Site, more specifically along the Black Heritage Trail, include gathering and meeting sites, schools, and mostly homes of notable figures of the African American community. The homes are not separately preserved or designated as house museums, but rather still serve as homes to new individuals and families. Nothing about the trail particularly marks it as a special Heritage trail, except for the occasional signs pointing visitors toward the right turns. Otherwise the course of the trail resembles any other street in the general neighborhood, taking visitors along the main streets lined with businesses and strolling passersby on each side of the cars driving through, as well as the residential streets packed with warm-toned brick pavements and colonial row houses that branched off from the main streets.