In late 2020, Leon Burnette, an independent tour director and civil rights historian, received a phone call from the director of a global travel company, asking him to recommend Black tour guides for a new tour being created along the United States Civil Rights Trail, which snakes from Kansas to Washington, D.C. But there was a problem: Burnette hardly knew any.
After the global reckoning over race in 2020, some group-tour providers made a pledge to improve equity through training, mentoring and funding for minority guides. Those programs are now up and running.