A Tour of Possibilities
The hospitality and tourism industries would not be complete without the stories that make Memphis a travel destination for so many visitors. And there are no better storytellers than the numerous tour guides who work within our city’s museums, attractions, galleries and more. From Elmwood Cemetery, where you can find tour guides dressed in costume for a cemetery tour; to the Memphis Zoo, where animal trainers and Zoo guides accompanied by their furry (or scaly) assistants teach you about animal life to all of our museums that are a font of information and Memphis stories, past and present.
One of our favorite city tour companies is A Tour of Possibilities. A Tour of Possibilities, or ATOP, offers African American History tours of Memphis. What they don’t advertise is that every time you meet with owner, Carolyn Michael-Banks, you will be greeted with the most endearing and genuine hug and be given a thought provoking and powerful tour of our city’s history. The ATOP team may be small, with only three tour guides on staff, but a small team can still be mighty.
Some of the highlights of Memphis that you will learn about while on an ATOP Tour include the Clayborn Temple, The Pyramid’s pre-BassPro history, Robert Church Park, local HBCU Lemoyne-Owen College, the National Civil Rights Museum, and so much more. ATOP also offers private tours so you can customize your own tour of Memphis. Possibilities abound with A Tour of Possibilities. Book your tour and deepen your knowledge of Memphis today!
Photo by: NLA Projects 2023. Carolyn Michael-Banks and Jarvis Hall
We wanted to include ATOP in our campaign promoting our jobs board because of the long standing relationship between Welcome to Memphis and ATOP. In addition to owning her own company and operating tours with ATOP, Carolyn Michael-Banks has also assisted with training sessions for our industry professionals. We have her to thank for some of the outstanding service that you can experience all over the city. The ATOP team, in addition to Carolyn Michael-Banks, includes Jackie Murray, our 2023 Annual Runner-Up for the Pick Awards in the Tour Guide category, and Jarvis Hall, the newest addition to the team!
We recently coordinated a photoshoot at the Memphis Black Arts Alliance in order to capture photos of the entire ATOP team. Though the Memphis Black Arts Alliance is not normally a destination on an ATOP tour because of its proximity to the other stops on their routes, our history spreads far and wide here in Memphis, and we wanted to include yet another powerful and important piece of Memphis and arts history. The Memphis Black Arts Alliance was founded by Bennetta “Bennie” Nelson West in 1982 and is housed in historic Firehouse #12. The original Alliance was comprised of 19 arts groups and approximately 35 individual artists including Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, George Hunt, and Naomi Moody. The MBAA’s website estimates that since the Alliance was founded they have employed over 4,200 artists and have trained over 43,500 youth artists! We were so grateful to be able to include the MBAA in this campaign as well. No one can deny that the arts are an integral part of our Memphis history and industry.
2023 Pick Award Honoree Jackie Murray spent some time with us during the photoshoot and had this to say about A Tour of Possibilities: “I find that doing these tours, they're kind of inspirational, and it lets people know that there are possibilities, and they're endless. I would hope that these tours change people's mindsets of Memphis as well. It brings it to life, and there are a lot of people who've taken the tour in their review saying that they had a whole new perspective.”
Photo by: NLA Projects 2023.
Tour guide Jarvis Hall is the most recent addition to ATOP’s staff At the time of our photoshoot, Jarvis was celebrating the one-year anniversary of his introduction to Carolyn Michael-Banks and to the tour industry. “I learned my value of being an informant, what that looks like to people who have never been to the city or who live here and their impression of the city. I didn’t know how valuable I was, and I didn’t know how much of an asset I was to this city until doing this work.”
Preserving and telling the story of our city’s history is absolutely an asset and we appreciate the whole ATOP team as well as all of the tour guides within Memphis who continue to be our industry representatives for visitors and Memphians alike.
If you are a Memphis history buff or are an avid storyteller, perhaps a career as a tour guide is your future! Visit our free jobs board on our website to find out more about the available jobs in our city attractions, museums and touring companies. Find your future career at WelcomeToMemphis.org/jobs.
For more information about A Tour of Possibilities and to book your next tour of Memphis history visit ATOP online or on social media at: ATOP Memphis, on Facebook, Instagram or take a Memphis Minute virtual tour available on YouTube.
For more information on the Memphis Black Arts Alliance visit online at MBAA or follow on social media on Twitter.
