Field Experiences

2026 Walking Tours

Explore the City with Curated Walking Tours

Step beyond the convention center and experience the city through guided walking tours designed to bring the local history, culture, and community to life. These immersive experiences offer attendees a chance to explore nearby neighborhoods, uncover hidden stories, and gain a deeper understanding of the forces that shaped the city we see today.

Led by expert guides and thoughtfully curated for conference attendees, each tour will blend architecture, social history, and place-based storytelling—creating a memorable, on-the-ground experience you won’t get from a classroom session.

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View highlights from the 2025 Field Experiences

All registrations are final.

While you may cancel your participation, no refunds will be provided.

2026 Walking Tours

2026 Walking Tour

Historic Alleyways of Shaw

Throughout DC’s history, alleyways have been a critical feature of neighborhood life. In the early twentieth century, DC’s hidden alleyways housed the majority of the city’s Black and immigrant populations, creating unique patterns of segregation. The grand residential blocks housed two distinct communities: White households lived in the street-facing homes and Black households occupied the same lots in interior alley houses hidden from the street. While city officials condemned life in the alleyways as dangerous, dirty, and diseased, they were in fact a place where communities sustained each other and provided security.

This walking tour, easily accessible from the Washington Convention Center, takes participants through the Blagden Alley/Naylor Court Historic District and reveals their secrets.

Historic brick townhouses in Shaw neighborhood | © amedved / iStock / Getty Images Plus

D.C. Alleyways, Shaw district | © Kelvin Sterling Scott / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Colorful urban architecture of Shaw neighborhood Washington, D.C. | © amedved / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Historic townhouses of Shaw neighborhood in Washington DC. | © amedved / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Note: Tour will include significant amounts of walking so weather appropriate clothes and comfortable shoes are a must. Semi-casual attire is recommended.

Schedule

Sunday, June 14, 2026 | 10:30 am – 12:30 pm Eastern
Tuesday, June 16, 2026 | 8:30 – 10:30 am Eastern

Registration: $15.00*

2026 Walking Tour

Mount Vernon Square Historic District

Once a dividing line between downtown’s federal offices and the historically Black Shaw neighborhood, the Mount Vernon Square Historic District has long been a hub of culture and change. This walking tour, easily accessible from the Washington Convention Center, gives participants an exclusive look inside the beautifully restored Carnegie Library, once one of the few integrated public spaces in a segregated city and now home to the DC History Center.

Along the way, explore the sites and stories of faith communities, urban renewal, racial justice, and 19th-century architecture repurposed for the modern era.

Note: Tour will include significant amounts of walking so weather appropriate clothes and comfortable shoes are a must. Semi-casual attire is recommended.