Tours for Classes
Amy Hillier regularly leads walking tours of the Seventh Ward for groups of high school, college, and graduate students.
Amy Hillier begins a Seventh Ward walking tour at the front steps of Mother Bethel.
Tours always start at Mother Bethel AME Church at 6th and Lombard Streets, the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in the world on the oldest piece of land continuously owned by African Americans in the U.S. Mother Bethel was—and remains—an anchor for the historic neighborhood that was once the center of Black Philadelphia. Many of the other Black institutions from the time of Du Bois’ study have since been demolished or converted to apartments, condominiums, and private residences.
Walking Tour Booklet
Haverford College student Mari Christmas was the first to suggest and develop a walking tour booklet for our team in 2008. Bates College student Samuel Wood added to the tour descriptions and formatted the booklet in 2012.
The tour includes 15 stops beginning at Mother Bethel Church at 6th and Lombard, including Starr Playground, the former site of the College Settlement Association, Du Bois mural, site of Octavius Catto’s murder, and the Institute for Colored Youth.
Amy Hillier led dozens of these tours, mostly for school groups (Bowie State University, Weehawken Township School District, Constitution High School, Jubilee School, UPenn student orientations) and people visiting Philadelphia.
The home of poet and abolitionist, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, is one of the stops on the Seventh Ward walking tour.
Additional Learning
Download the Walking Tour BookletPerspectives
Virtual Tour
When in-person walking tours were not possible because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amy Hillier developed a virtual tour by recording herself at each of the stops.
Mother Bethel Museum
School groups often combine the walking tour with a visit to the Richard Allen Museum outlined a curriculum unit located in the basement of Mother Bethel AME Church. The museum includes artifacts and historical documents dating back to the church’s founding 1793 along with a tomb of Richard Allen and his wife, Sara and a mural by James Dupree depicting the history of Mother Bethel.
Mother Bethel founder Richard Allen and his wife and the history of the Church are commemorated in a mural by Philadelphia artist, James Dupree, in the Mother Bethel Museum.
Seventh Ward Tribute Tours
Amy Hillier and students from her urban studies first-year seminar led tours as part of the Seventh Ward Tribute every Saturday between October 2023 and February 2024. Hundreds of neighbors, local historians, students, and elected officials and their staff came out to learn and share stories about the neighborhood. Mrs. Shapiro, First Lady of Pennsylvania, also came for a private tour of Mother Bethel and the Seventh Ward.
Amy Hillier points to the house where William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad, lived during a Seventh Ward walking tour with Pennsylvania’s First Lady, Lori Shapiro.
Reflecting Revenants
A collaborative visual tribute to Black residents in Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward throughout our shared history.
West Philadelphia artists Beth Lewis and Amelia Carter teamed up to identify and install more than a dozen historical images of everyday Black people in the Seventh Ward through their Reflecting Revenants pop-up gallery in conjunction with the Seventh Ward Tribute in 2023. They featured images from the Philadelphia City Archives, Charles L. Blockson Afro American Collection and Special Collections Research Center at Temple University Libraries, Cheyney University, and the Philadelphia Library Company.
The images were intended to conjure an “ethereal energetic imprint that transcended time.” Beth and Amelia led tours of the outdoor installation, with and without Amy Hillier. After the end of the Seventh Ward Tribute in February 2023, some of the images were removed, but the image in the large sanctuary window of Church of the Crucifixion at 8th and Bainbridge Streets remains.
Church of the Crucifixion, located at 8th and Bainbridge Streets, was included in the Reflecting Revenants public art installation created by Amelia Carter and Beth Lewis.