Tour company highlights the Black businesses of Martha’s Vineyard

Live Like a Local Tours founder Collin Knight has been inspired and guided by his community throughout his career. His tours take people out of the typical tourist spots of downtown Boston and into the city’s Black and brown neighborhoods to expose them to food, business and people that make each neighborhood unique.

After some time spent in New York, Knight wanted share what he loved about his hometown with the masses.

“I started thinking about, what would it look like to start my own tour company, thinking about Boston’s, perception and how it’s looked at as a white city. I think the neighborhoods are often ignored. And so I started thinking about what it would look like to do food, history and culture tours in the neighborhoods of color in the Boston area. And so in 2019 I quit my job working as an actor/educator at a local nonprofit, and I started this business.”

Previous guests from Live Like a Local’s MV Black Biz Day Tour pose on the ferry. PHOTO: LIVE LIKE A LOCAL TOURS

Knight wanted to use his company not only as a way to highlight different areas of Boston but he also wanted to highlight the diverse businesses within these communities.

“I started to create relationships with local businesses in the area. And started thinking about, how do we use tourism to circulate dollars within communities of color, and so that’s kind of, you know, how it all started,” the young entrepreneur said.

With tours running through Roxbury, Dorchester and Jamaica Plain, Knight was very strategic about the target areas of his tours.

“These three neighborhoods are the closest to downtown Boston. It’s hard to get tourists out into the communities that are farther out. So I thought to myself, maybe if I started in these three neighborhoods it could work. And also, when we think about those neighborhoods, Roxbury is the epicenter of Black history since the 1960s. In Jamaica Plain, we think about the Latinx culture. That’s the Latin Quarter, and then the Dorchester area, that’s been a Cape Verdean community since the 70s. So these three neighborhoods, it’s not just about locale. It’s about the vibrant culture and history of what these neighborhoods became in the 60s and 70s, when we’re talking about people of color,” he said.

On September 14, Live Like a Local is taking their tour on the road. Knight and his crew are heading to Martha’s Vineyard to give their guests a taste of the Black businesses and culture that adds to the island’s appeal.

“I never thought about doing tours of Martha’s Vineyard. That wasn’t a thing for me, but a woman by the name of India Rose, who runs the Martha’s Vineyard Black Business Directory, called me a couple of years ago and approached me about possibly bringing Bostonians out to Martha vineyard in the off season to support black businesses,” he said.

At first Knight declined the offer but Rose tried her best to get him to reconsider.

“At first I told her that I didn’t think I was the right person for the job. I was like, that’s not really what I do. I just kind of do the neighborhood of Boston and really be specific within those neighborhoods. That’s kind of my niche. I didn’t know if I could really help with that. And she told me to think about it. She said ‘I think you could do this,’” he remembered.

After careful consideration, he connected with some of his community partners including BECMA and Ujima to open this up to the people of the neighborhoods that his tours run through.

“The goal was to get community members out onto the island, to enjoy the day, to get out of the city, and to support other black businesses. I think the other thing too is Martha’s business also looked at as like an elite place to be,” Knight said.

Changing perceptions and exposing people to hidden gems are some of the tenants that Live Like a Local Tours are based on.

“Not everybody can afford to summer there or even spend a week there, much less a day, right? And so we were looking at what would it look like for community members who had never been to Martha’s Vineyard or had been there, but it was 15 or 20 years since they’ve been. We wanted to able to take care of the transportation and to curate an experience for them. That felt really good to me. I really love showing people the neighborhoods in Boston, but I thought to myself, because of the the elite feel of Martha’s Vineyard, and lot of people feel excluded because they can’t afford to go out there. I thought how can we create this experience so that people could take a day trip there? And so that, to me, aside from everything else, was a really big piece,” Knight said.

One of his community partners came up with a multi-level pricing system to help make his dream a reality.

“Ujima created this community tier program for pricing. There was a tier for people who couldn’t really afford it. There was a tier that they could afford. And then we also had tiers for the people who could afford other price ranges as well as one for if you wanted to be generous and give a ticket to someone else. So it really was an effort to make sure that no matter what your financial background was, you would be able to have this experience regardless of whether you had a million dollars or you had $100,” he said.

For more information on the Martha’s Vineyard tour or one of the other Live Like a Local Tours, visit livelikealocaltoursboston.com.