I have lived in New York City for more than a decade, but I embarrassingly have spent very little of that time exploring Manhattan. I live in Brooklyn and work in Manhattan, and it's easy to get into a routine of commuting back and forth every day, only spending time in the small radius of your office and your apartment, and not taking advantage of all that this incredible city has to offer. The Harlem Heritage Tours are a perfect example of something I should have done years ago.
What prompted me to get out of my bubble and explore Harlem was a book I had been reading, Manning Marable's Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. I am a dedicated but slow reader, and it took me months to read this wonderful book. When I finished, I realized that so much of Malcolm X's life (including his death) was in the very city that I lived in and I could probably go see some of the locations mentioned in the book in person not far from my home. A quick online search led me to the Harlem Heritage Tours, and specifically, in amazing serendipity, to a Malcolm X focused civil rights tour. I had astonishingly finished the biography of Malcolm X on the anniversary of his death, and in his honor they were doing the civil rights tour that day with a focus on him.
I hightailed it up to Harlem just in time to take the tour and I'm so glad I did. The tour guide was Neal Shoemaker, who was born and raised in Harlem. I couldn't imagine a more well-informed tour guide on the subject. He not only seemed to know everything about Malcolm X and many other civil rights leaders who made a lasting impression on Harlem and the world, he had a personal history with the neighborhood, since it is where he lives and grew up. I went to the tour hoping to see the places where Malcolm X had been, and I did, but I also learned about many other civil rights leaders and important writers like James Baldwin; saw other famous sites of Harlem, like the Apollo Theater; and got a sense of the neighborhood as it is has evolved over the years from the unique perspective of a local.
I can't recommend the Harlem Heritage Tours more highly. It was stunning to see videos and images of the people we were learning about standing in the places where we were standing. Walking around the neighborhood with Neal as our guide, the history I had been reading about for so many months was brought vividly to life. These tours are an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about a major part of New York City and its important place in world history. If you have the chance, put on your walking shoes and head up to Harlem for a tour!