Walking Where It Happened

I've walked the Freedom Trail thousands of times—2.5 miles, sixteen official sites, roughly ninety minutes if you don't stop. But I never walk it the same way twice.

Every group brings different questions. School kids want to know about the violence. Tourists want the highlights. History buffs want the details we skip. International visitors often understand colonial resistance better than Americans—they've seen it in their own countries.

The hardest question I get: "Whose freedom?" The Trail tells a particular story about particular men. It's a true story, but not the only story. Phillis Wheatley lived a few blocks from here, writing about liberty while enslaved. Thousands of Black Bostonians aren't on this trail.

I don't have a simple answer. I tell people the Revolution was about freedom and also about hypocrisy. Both are true. The men who declared all men equal held people in bondage. Understanding that doesn't diminish what they built—it complicates it.

That's what I try to give people: not a simple story, but a truer one. Boston deserves that.