Hymns for Salted Bones: A Re-membering of Hayti Walking Tour
Preservation Durham and Hayti Promise CDC are excited to partner with Whistle Stop Tours to put on a theatrical tour of six homes along the historic Fayetteville Street Corridor, funded through the ARPA grant as part of the Fayetteville Street Corridor Project. The Fayetteville Street Corridor was a crucial part of the Hayti Community, home to many movers and shakers in Durham. Featured along this tour are the Dr. Leroy Swift Office and Residence, the Harriet Tubman YWCA, the Dr. Joseph N. Mills House, the F.K. "Movie King" and Parepa Watkins House, the Page and Sons Grocery Store, and the Scarborough House. Prepare for an immersive storytelling experience centering community testimonies brought to life through performance art. A funeral and a revival, a ritual and a living procession, the tour gathers witnesses to honor Black spaces as sites of care, achievement, displacement, and resilience. Together we will preserve dignity, confront loss, embrace belonging, and invite collective responsibility.
It is important to note that this tour is different from our usual walking tours in that actors will walk us through a performance, embodying the homes to share their histories. Whistle Stop Tours is a performance group that shares history through their art. Music, dance, rituals, and acting are all crucial parts of this tour, creating an immersive experience for the tourgoers to learn more about the historic Fayetteville Street Corridor.
Dates:
September 12th, 2:00 - 3:30 pm
September 19th, 2:00 - 3:30 pm
September 26th, 2:00 - 3:30 pm
October 3, 2:00 - 3:30 pm
October 17th, 2:00 - 3:30 pm
November 7, 2:00 - 3:30 pm
November 14, 2:00 - 3:30 pm
November 21, 2:00 - 3:30 pm
The tour will start at Stanford L. Warren Library (1201 Fayetteville Street, Durham, NC 27701). While we will be meeting there, we ask that attendees park along Simmons and Umstead Street instead of the library parking lot to ensure plenty of parking is available for library patrons. The tour ends at 1406 Fayetteville Street, right beside W.D. Hill Recreation Center. If you would rather park at the ending spot, there is plenty of parking available at the back of W.D. Hill.
All of the eight tours are free and open to the general public! Registration is required.
For a sneak peek of the tour and to get a better understanding of the structure, watch the video below (skip to 4:47 to begin the section on Whistle Stop Tours).
