The U.S. National Park Service preserves 58 national parks, 390 parks, historic sites, memorials, and recreation areas that attract nearly 300 million visitors every year. Our U.S. national parks are repositories of the nation’s biological diversity and contain some of the last ecosystem remnants that are found nowhere else in the world. Explore US Parks Online

Shenandoah National Park is a beautiful, historic national treasure which includes the 105-mile long Skyline Drive, a National Scenic Byway. The Park covers the crest of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains for over seventy-five miles. The Appalachian Trail roughly parallels the Skyline Drive and 101 miles of this trail run through the Park. (more…)

African American Heritage Sites

The National Park System preserves the history and contributions of African Americans and their part of the nation's history. Over the years, staff of the National Park Service has reflected the nation's social history.

For example, Charles Young was an early Superintendent of Sequoia National Park in 1903. As a Captain in the 9th Cavalry Regiment, he was directed to take two troops of Buffalo soldiers to the Giants Grove of Sequioa and protect the trees and the park from damage. While there, the two companies completed construction of a road to the Giant's Grove, making public access to these amazing trees possible.

Today, the US Parks system has many historic parks and sites, reserves, and national monuments that reflect African American contributions to the United States.

These include:

  • African Burial Ground National Monument, New York, NY
  • Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, Arlington, VA;
  • Booker T. Washington National Monument, Hardy, VA; Boston NHS, Boston, MA; George Washington Carver NHS
  • Boston African American National Historic Site, Boston, MA;
  • Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, Topeka, KS
  • Cane River Creole National Historical Park, Natchez, LA; Central High School NHS, Little Rock, AR;
  • Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown, VA (Jamestown African Americans);
  • Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, Dayton, OH (Paul L. Dunbar House);
  • Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Washington, D.C.;
  • Fort Davis National Historic Site, Fort Davis, TX (Buffalo Soldiers);
  • Fort Scott National Historic Site, Fort Scott, KS (Kansas 1st Colored Dragoons);
  • Fort Smith National Historic Site, Fort Smith, AR (from slavery to Parker’s Court);
  • George Washington Birthplace National Monument, Washington’s Birthplace, VA (Washington’s Slaves, Indentured Servants, & Free Blacks;
  • George Washington Carver National Monument, Diamond, MO;
  • Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Salt Flat, TX (Buffalo Soldiers)
  • Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, Harpers Ferry, WV; (Frederick Douglas Visit)
  • Harpers Ferry TC, Storer College, Harpers Ferry, WV; (Free Black School)
  • Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, Hopewell, PA; (African Americans)
  • Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, New Orleans, LA;
  • Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, MO (Black Frontiersman)
  • Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Springfield, IL;
  • Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.;
  • Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, Richmond, VA;
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, Atlanta, GA;
  • Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site, Washington, D.C.;
  • New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, New Orleans, LA;
  • Nicodemus National Historic Site, Nicodemus, KS;
  • Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial, Put-in-Bay, OH; (Black Sailors)
  • Petersburg National Battlefield, Petersburg, VA;
  • Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial, Concord NWS, Concord, CA;
  • Richmond National Battlefield Park, Richmond, VA;
  • San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, San Francisco, CA; (African American Maritime History)
  • Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, Montgomery, Lowndes & Dallas Counties, AL;
  • Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, Jacksonville, FL; (Kingsley Plantation)
  • Tuskegee Airman National Historic Site, Tuskegee, AL;
  • Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site, Tuskegee, AL;
  • Virgin Islands National Park, St.Johns, VI.