Hallowed Ground: The Street at the Heart of Buffalo's Black History

For 185 years, some of the most important chapters of American history have unfolded on a few blocks of Buffalo's East Side. In the third episode of our four-part Unpacked by Afar series, we walk the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor, the beating heart of Buffalo Black history, with the man who has made preserving it his life's work.

Executive director Terry Alford grew up on these streets and is now leading their revival. He guides host Aislyn Greene through 185 years of Buffalo Black history: a church that was one of the last stops on the Underground Railroad, the home where the Niagara Movement was born, the club where jazz greats jammed until dawn because they weren't allowed to sleep in the hotels they had just played, and the radio station that became the megaphone of the Civil Rights movement.

Then he shares how urban renewal nearly erased it all, and how he is fighting to bring it back, guided by the Ghanaian principle of Sankofa: move forward, but never forget where you came from.

This is cultural travel at its most moving, a piece of American travel culture far too few people know. It is also one of the most powerful travel stories we have told, and a lesson in responsible travel: how to visit a place and honor the people whose stories made it. If Buffalo Black history is not yet on your list of American travel destinations, this episode, and this corridor, will change that.

Meet this week's guest

• Terry Alford, executive director of the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission

Chapters

• 00:00 Buffalo's Black History
• 04:19 Underground Railroad to Jazz
• 10:02 Loss and Revival
• 13:42 A Vision for 2030

Where to go to explore Buffalo's Black history

• Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor — Start at the visitor center and tour the anchor sites, all just steps apart.
• Michigan Street Baptist Church — Built in 1845, one of the last stops on the Underground Railroad, with a newly restored interior.
• Nash House Museum — The preserved home of Rev. J. Edward Nash and Frances Nash, plus the Frances Nash community garden and Tuesday farmers market.
• The Colored Musicians Club & Jazz Museum — The only continuously running, all-Black-owned club in the U.S., with Sunday night jam sessions and a jazz museum.
• WUFO Black Radio History Collective — The historic voice of Buffalo's Civil Rights movement.
• The Freedom Wall — The AKG's 28-portrait mural of Black Civil Rights figures, at the corridor's northern entrance.
• Read more in Afar's guide to Buffalo's Black history along the Michigan Street corridor, and plan your trip with our Buffalo travel guide.

This is episode three of a four-part series. Next week, we explore Buffalo's astonishing architecture, one of the best-kept design secrets in America.

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