Black History Tour

The tour started and ended at the Visitors Center, which is ideal for tourists, accessible by transport, car or trolley.

Johnnie the guide, is full of enthusiasm and knowledge. He gave us a lot of information and took us to places we would never have known about.the areas of the graveyards for the slaves, for instance.

The best part, for me, was visiting the Beach Institute of African American Culture (established 1867) and meeting the very friendly people there. It is an amazing building with displays and huge amounts of history.

We too were in the church van, but it was fine and the other people joining us were great too. We had a really enjoyable afternoon and I was very glad we had seen the leaflet and decided to come. Great value too at $25 for 2 hours for seniors.

We were there on my birthday, and I couldn't have wished for a better afternoon.

Well done Johnnie

I had expressed interest in a Black history tour of Savannah and my Uber driver had provided a flier for this tour. I called the owner and asked about the tour and said I was interested in doing it on my last day in Savannah. When I arrived at the visitors’ center, I was told to wait on the bench and he would pull up. We (myself and others in the group) saw a church bus circle the lot and leave but again, we weren’t sure if that was him. One of the visitor center staffers came out and we told her that we had seen the bus. She said it was Johnny, the tour operator, and she told us to call and see if he would circle back. I called him and he’s immediately rude and yelling that we had to meet him at his sign by the trolley tours. Meanwhile, he had said nothing about the bus he has for the tour ( It’s from the Thankful Missionary Baptist Church) or a sign when I called him and this information is NOT on the flier. Based off this interaction, I don’t recommend this tour ( the staffer at the visitor center also said he’s always late). There are too many other Black history tour operators in Savannah and I will be sure to check out one of them next time. I did have an amazing tour on the Gullah Geechee history of Savannah from Sister Vaughnette and I highly recommend that one instead.

Tour guide was very knowledgeable, my only drawback was that he didn’t address passengers that talked most of the time of the tour, it made it difficult to hear what he was saying.

In addition, when we stopped at different locations, he didn’t wait for most of the group to get to the spot he was going to discuss, he just started talking. There were seniors on this trip who couldn’t move as fast as the rest of us.

Other than that, we learned some things.

I try to support Black businesses when visiting Savannah and decided to take this tour based on the reviews it received. However, I was greatly disappointed with the limited and repetitive information provided by the guide and the gaps during the tour when we literally sat in silence on the bus without any engagement from Mr. Brown. That being said, tour guides have different ranges of historical knowledge but the best are well informed. There are other really good tours that focus on Black history in the region and I encourage you to seek them out. My personal referral would be Day Clean Journeys that has never disappointed. Do your own research and enjoy the rich legacy of Black people in Savannah during your stay.