Manumission Tour Company

GREAT tour today with Pam!!! We've lived in Alexandria just over two years and learned more today than in our entire time here. Great guide, excellent information, and incredible value. We'll be doing more tours with Manumission!!! Highly recommended!

Great experience from start to finish! Scheduling the tour was quick and easy online using the link my friend sent me. The guide was knowledgeable and responsive to the group's many questions. There are so many stories left untold in our history books and our guide introduced us to early luminaries in the Black community in Alexandria, like doctors, civil rights attorneys, property developers and organizers of churches and social clubs. We even visited a cemetery from the 1800s where freedmen were buried after the war. Standing there, I had such a powerful feeling. These were REAL people, not just faceless characters from a book.

Know before you go: This is a small, locally owned and operated business. Don't expect 24/7 operators to take your call. If you are from out of town, it gets hot here in the summer! Our guide had water bottles for us and the bus was air conditioned (not on arctic blast but it was nice). Do expect a caring and personal experience. You'll be glad you went!

We've done this tour twice and can't recommend it highly enough! Such a great idea to tell the history of Alexandria's enslaved people through their own stories while walking through the places where it all happened. Well paced, well told, fascinating and important.

We had a WONDERFUL time on this black history tour in Alexandria - as we are originally not from here, we really appreciated learning the lesser known stories of Africans and African Americans, enslaved and freed, throughout Old Town. We've spent the past year enjoying the sights and restaurants of Old Town waterfront so we were excited to learn about the history of the black community here.

John Chapman was an excellent tour guide - highly recommend this tour company for anyone living or visiting in Alexandria, particularly families and schools!

I booked a tour on the website two weeks prior. The day the tour was scheduled someone called 20 minutes before it started to cancel. Very unprofessional.

This is a must attend tour for everyone who wants to learn more about the history of Alexandria.

The tour guide is knowledgeable, kind, and friendly. He encourages questions and very engaging.

It was great to learn the background of key aspects of black history.

Our tour guide Pam was knowledgeable and passionate about sharing a balanced and factual tour constructed from stories of enslaved and freed residents of Alexandria. Not having grown up completely in the US, I may have had less of a background in black history in the US than might be typical. Pam patiently answered every single question, which was helpful to fill in the context of the vignettes--I was able to construe a better understanding of what it was like to be in a society in which slave owners and Quackers co-existed, the challenges of pulling oneself up by ones bootstraps during Reconstruction, and how and why Alexandria was the largest slave trading center after the trans-Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in Britain. And many more topics. A highly recommended tour. I was embarrassed to realize after the fact that I kept our tour guide an hour past the 90 minute mark. Thank you for so generally sharing your time with us, Pam!!

We live in an era in which we recognise the importance and challenge of changing behaviors and beliefs.. how public opinion changed or didn't change regarding the morality of owning another human being is a topic we should better understand.

I tried to book tours with them right around Christmas 2021. It's completely understandable that they could not accommodate tours around a major holiday. I understand that tour guides want a holiday too. But it would be nice if they would update their website with holiday closure information and also be more communicative with people who are trying to book tours. It was hard getting a straight answer and a timely reply. Nevertheless, I hope to take a tour with them in the future if I'm back in DC because their positive reviews must have been well-earned.

Tour guide John Chapman's is an Alexandria City Council member, civic booster and scholar of Alexandria's history. The tour we went on, "Freedom's Fight" focused on the lives of enslaved people in Alexandria and the efforts of abolitionists locally. Mr. Chapman is fantastically knowledgeable about his town's history and full of great stories. Well worth a morning!

Mr. Chapman completely transformed the Old Town I've grown up with by bringing to life the stories of the people who built it. I brought my family to experience this tour for the first time, and it was the perfect way to make new memories. The tour was informative, entertaining, and paced in such a way that 90 min flew by! We met at the Alexandria Library, then zig zagged our way to the waterfront, stopping in front of homes or business of historic figures whose incredible lives were shared with us. At the end of the tour, we hopped on a trolley to Hen Quarter, a local black owned restaurant that Mr. Chapman recommended to us. From beginning to end, our time together was deeply rewarding. And, I feel like such an accomplished host to my family who's altogether for the holidays.