Black History Month: Stacey Toussaint Highlights New York City's Hidden Stories With Inside Out Tours

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- In honor of Black History Month, CBS2's Aundrea Cline-Thomas went on a tour with a woman who uncovers history that is hidden in plain sight.

Stacey Toussaint says her mission is more important than ever.

Brooklyn Bridge Park, with its scenic views of the Manhattan skyline, was once the home of one of the first free Black communities in New York City.

"Before slavery ended in 1827, there was a group of African Americans that established this community and did things like establish churches, schools, benevolence cooperatives where they could to pool their resources in order to help each other," Toussaint said.

The story shared on a marker at the park is so easy for visitors to miss. That's why Toussaint created Inside Out Tours 12 years ago.

She even added virtual tours to her offerings with the help of her fiancé, Derrek Murdock, during the pandemic to ensure these untold stories won't just be passed by.

"Often when tourists come here, they go to the iconic places and as a result, there are many neighborhoods that don't get featured and many stories that don't get told," Toussaint said.

A native New Yorker and daughter of Haitian immigrants, Toussaint spent years as a lawyer in commercial litigation and securities while teaching history to college students before starting her company.

"So even when we're telling iconic New York stories, we're talking about the perspective of different groups that are usually left out of the story," she said.

From the bravery of 15,000 people remembered at the African burial ground in Lower Manhattan to the advocacy at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights, a vital stop on the Underground Railroad.

"It was called the Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad ... so if you walk by this church, what you will see is there's a sculpture here of a man named Henry Ward Beecher," Toussaint said. "They would have these mock auctions where they would take different enslaved people, put them in front of the congregation and raise money to set those people free."

But tour guides don't just focus on the struggles -- they also highlight the triumphs.

"That's why we have a tour called the Black Joy Tour,' where we go around the city and say yes, these things were happening, but these people were doing amazing things. At a time when they shouldn't have been able to succeed, they succeeded," Toussaint said.

From demands for racial justice to the need to bridge deep political divides that Toussaint said only increased the sense of urgency for these stories to be told.

"One of the problems we're going through right now in America is extreme polarization," she said. "But then if you have intercultural understanding, that's a way to fight against that."

What may seem like one of many tour companies is really a mission is to amplify the voices of the marginalized, past and present.

"There's so much in New York that's hidden in plain sight if you know where to look," Toussaint said.

Telling the stories often left out of the history books.

Toussaint wants to create a nonprofit that can help advocate for more key locations to have a historical marker, and she's hoping to work with schools to teach students about this history.