Guidebooks Highlight Black History-Related Landmarks in America : Heritage: Sites include statues, churches, college campuses, cemeteries, Civil War battlefields and the homes of famous African-Americans.

Who was the first black film actor to leave his footprints in the famous cement of Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood? The answer is found in “Black America,” one of two recent guidebooks featuring historical and cultural landmarks important in the nation’s black heritage, and the name really should be no surprise. Sidney Poitier took the honor, writes author Marcella Thum. Poitier was inducted into movieland’s courtyard of immortalized stars in 1967 following his success in “The Lilies of the Field,” for which he won the Oscar for best actor.

What may be surprising, however, is that the states of the South appear to have done the best job to date of highlighting black history-related attractions within their borders. At least this is the conclusion reached by George Cantor, author of “Historic Black Landmarks,” the other new guidebook, as he researched some 300 sites in 46 states. He especially compliments Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee.

The need for a guide to America’s black heritage has long been obvious, and now the traveling public has two. They are quite different in their approaches, and serious students of black history may want to acquire both. My preference is “Historic Black Landmarks,” which is more selective in its entries but provides a wealth of detail about them. “Black America” lists more than twice as many sites, about 700, but the descriptive material is often disappointingly brief.

It is fine to read about a historical event, but certainly the occurrence becomes more vivid if you happen to be standing where it took place. Similarly, historic personages come alive when you walk in their footsteps. Both guides make an important contribution to American society by calling attention to the many places that tell the compelling story of African-Americans since the first blacks reached this continent--even before the Pilgrims. Some sites are relatively unknown but shouldn’t be.

For example, one of many museums focusing on the black experience is the Great Plains Black Museum in Omaha, which opened in 1976. Not widely known outside the Middle West, it depicts the often-forgotten role of black cowboys and pioneers in settling the Plains--among them Mary Fields, who, writes Cantor, ran a stagecoach stop in Cascade, Mont.

All kinds of sites have made it into these guides--statues, churches, college campuses, cemeteries, Civil War battlefields, the homes of famous African-Americans, significant cultural landmarks such as the Motown Museum in Detroit and the Apollo Theatre in New York City, and especially places associated with both the great successes and the tragedies witnessed in the civil-rights movement.

These sample entries illustrate the broad scope of the guides, and the light they shed on African-American history:

--In Detroit, the city’s most controversial piece of art is the 24-foot-long sculpture of a giant arm and clenched fist. Titled “The Fist,” it is a tribute not to the black-power movement, as one might conclude, but to the skill and power of world champion boxer Joe Louis, who grew up in Detroit and became the country’s first black national sports hero.

--In St. Louis, the home of ragtime musician and composer Scott Joplin is being restored in the style of the early 1900s, the era during which he lived there for three years. Joplin died penniless and disappointed in 1919 trying to get his opera “Treemonisha” staged, but in the past two decades his music has been rediscovered by pop and classical fans alike.

--In Mobile, Ala., the descendants of kidnaped Africans brought to America on the last known illegal slave ship still form a small community that may become the focus of a historical park. In 1859, the arriving ship, the Clothilde, managed to elude federal patrol boats, but its captain was forced to set his human cargo free. They settled in a part of northern Mobile that was called Africa Town, many of them maintaining customs from the homeland. The last of the Clothilde’s passengers, Cudjoe Lewis, died in 1935, and he is honored with a bronze bust memorial outside the Union Baptist Church.

--In Memphis, Tenn., the downtown Lorraine Motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 has been transformed into the new National Civil Rights Museum, a one-of-a-kind exhibit center that dramatically portrays major events in the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Visitors can step aboard a replica of a Montgomery, Ala., bus to hear the story of seamstress Rosa Parks and her role in sparking the famous black boycott of Montgomery city buses in 1955.

--In Virginia’s Jamestown Settlement, a state historical park, a small exhibit traces the role of blacks in early Colonial history. The first permanent English colony in North America was founded at Jamestown in 1607, and the first group of blacks arrived in 1619 as indentured servants. Like whites similarly indentured, they were to become free and receive land once they had worked off the cost of their passage, usually a matter of three to seven years. In 1625, a young couple among them became parents of the first black child born in this country. By the 1650s, however, white landowners began claiming that black servants belonged to them for life, and slavery soon became sanctioned.

--In Chattanooga, Tenn., blues singer Bessie Smith is honored in the city’s Afro-American Museum, which exhibits photographs and objects relating to notable African-Americans from Chattanooga. A highlight of the museum, the Bessie Smith exhibit features her piano and many personal mementos.

--In Beaufort, S.C, there is a memorial to Robert Smalls. At the outset of the Civil War, Smalls was serving as the pilot on the Confederate steamer Planter. But in May of 1862, he and the rest of the black crew sailed the ship out of the harbor and into Union hands. A year later, he was made captain of the Planter. Smalls was elected five times to the U.S. Congress after the war. The Smalls House, is a national historic landmark. The memorial is at the Baptist Tabernacle Church.

Another significant guidebook making a contribution to American cultural awareness is Insight Guides’ “Native America,” edited by John Gattuso. It is an informed introduction to the history, culture and places relating to this country’s Indian population.

The book provides information on more than 200 Indian tribes and reservations, describing traditional customs and ceremonies and suggesting the best way to see and perhaps even experience them. A very useful section cautions that “Native American villages are living, working communities; the privacy of the residents and the integrity of the structures must be respected at all times.” Nicely illustrated, the guide sells for $19.95.

“Historic Black Landmarks, a Traveler’s Guide,” by George Cantor, is published by Visible Ink and sells for $17.95. The “Hippocrene U.S.A. Guide to Black America, a Directory of Historic and Cultural Sites Relating to Black America,” by Marcella Thum, is published by Hippocrene Books and sells for $11.95. Both can be purchased in travel bookstores.