Next month is Black History Month and in honor of it, the nonprofit Freedom Trail Foundation runs the 90-minute “African-American Patriots Tour.” It details the lives of African-American patriots and the roles they played in America’s history. For kids who might only be familiar with tales about Paul Revere and a few others, it’s a chance to get a fuller historical picture (and get outside!).

The foundation’s tours, which follow along the Freedom Trail, are led by costumed guides who portray various 18th century real-life historical characters. Among others, tour participants learn about Crispus Attucks, who was killed in the Boston Massacre and along with the other victims, instantly became one of the martyrs of the Revolution. Attucks, a dock worker who was born around 1723, is listed in the Massacre court record as “mulatto,” which in 18th century Boston meant he was not “pure” white.

Tour-goers will also learn about Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American, and the third woman in the United States to publish a book of poems---and this after being kidnapped in West Africa and brought to Boston as a slave in 1761.

Prince Hall, one of Boston’s most prominent citizens during the revolutionary period and the founder of the first lodge of black Freemasonry, also is discussed, as is Peter Salem, one of the Minutemen heroes of the Revolutionary War, who fought both at Concord and at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Boston also has a Black Heritage Trail, which takes you by houses of worship, homes, schools, and Underground Railroad sites. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Boston’s free African American community led the nation in the movement to end slavery and to achieve equal rights. These remarkable patriots established businesses, founded organizations and created schools. In season, park rangers offer guided tours, but self-guided tours can be downloaded online. The tour starts at the Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial, across from the State House, and ends at The African Meeting House, the nation’s first African Meeting House.