Philly’s tour guides are fighting over whose stories matter

When Bob Skiba helped found the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides (APT) in 2008, Philly guides were reeling from a bad rep. A series of newspaper exposés had shown more than a couple of guides were playing fast and loose with the facts — telling tourists, in one of the most egregious examples, that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were known to dine together in Old City.

So Skiba, a veteran guide, who is also curator of the archive at the William Way LGBT Community Center, imagined an organization where Philadelphia’s storytellers could offer each other knowledge and support. The organization that grew out of it became the APT, Philly’s sole training and certification program for tour guides. (Years ago, this reporter took the APT test for a column — and passed — but never became a paying, active member.) The intensive tour training, designed by Skiba, restored the public’s good opinion of the beleaguered guides and won national praise.

Skiba thought he was continuing that legacy last June when he spoke up against a proposal to invite the Philly-based American Bible Society to promote their new Faith and Discovery Center to the APT’s guides.

The global Bible distributor made headlines in 2017 when it issued an ultimatum to its workers, requiring them to swear off sex outside of heterosexual marriage — or resign. The pledge was seen by some at the company and many in the LGBTQ community as a way for the organization to push out its gay employees. Nearly 20% of the society’s staff resigned.

And yet, with the Faith and Discovery Center surely to become a destination for tourists, APT’s vice president, Marianne Ruane, suggested they have the religious organization as guest speakers at a meeting and angle for a “behind the scenes tour” of the group’s gleaming new exhibit space on Independence Mall, which retells the American story with religious faith at the center.

Skiba recommended hitting the brakes.

“We need to discuss this, but count me out,” he wrote the board in an email. “The American Bible Society has many problematic policies.” He sent his colleagues a news story on the 2017 ultimatum.

Ruane and APT’s president, Judy Smith, quickly dismissed Skiba’s concerns.

“We don’t have to agree with their policies,” Ruane said, adding that guides would benefit from a visit, regardless.

Skiba told the tour guiding group’s leaders they were demonstrating “white, heterosexual privilege.”

“I felt like I had to defend my community,” said Skiba, who persisted in his protests, emailing the board who eventually stopped responding.

Soon, Skiba resigned, but later changed his mind. He wanted to improve the organization he helped build.

When his dues were not accepted, the respected LGBTQ historian — and one of the most prominent advocates of Philly’s tourism industry — realized he had been banned.

Tour guides around the city, including outside the APT, say Skiba’s ouster is a symptom of a much larger problem.

The group of about 150 guides and amateur historians represents just a fraction of the city’s tour guides, and the members have long considered themselves the cream of the crop.

But the group’s makeup has never included more than a handful of people of color, Skiba said. Even in a city rich with Black and LGBTQ history, the APT remains overwhelmingly white and straight.

“There is a wildly vibrant community of people working to change not only the narrative of Philadelphia, but the whole American narrative of what we digest when it comes to folklore and mythology,” said Rebecca Fisher, cofounder of Beyond the Bell, which offers walking tours of Philly’s marginalized communities, peoples, and histories.

“But these people are rarely promoted by our conventional spaces in tourism, including the APT.”

It’s a failure for which Skiba accepts his fair share of blame. He helped found the APT, served as its president, and edited its first handbook, which showcased only a fraction of Philly’s Black history landmarks.

The group’s Black membership rarely exceeded much more than 10%, Skiba estimated.

“Which is totally unacceptable,” he said.

Before COVID, he tried to improve equity and diversity at the organization, including lobbying the board to issue a statement of support for the Black Lives Matter Movement, organizing a panel of Black tour guides at the Independence Visitor Center, and introducing a new training series titled, “Other voices. Other stories.”

Still, Skiba said he rarely received genuine buy-in from the group’s leadership — and would often see Black and queer guides scope out events, but never return.

Fisher, 27, attended an APT event with her business partner, Joey Leroux, 26, in 2018, when the best friends had just started their venture — which offers “The Badass Women’s History Tour” and “The City of Pride Trolley Tour” — and were looking to network.

Instead, Fisher felt belittled.

“As a younger person, someone who doesn’t have a master’s degree, and a queer person — it was a fairly unwelcoming environment,” she said. “We were pretty much scoffed at — that there would be an audience for talking about people who weren’t Benjamin Franklin or William Penn or other white men.”

Kalela Williams, 43, is a writer and founder of Black History Maven, which offers walking tours and events on Black and women’s history, including the historic Seventh Ward along South Street, the heart of Philadelphia’s early civil rights movement.

Williams believes a lack of inclusion in how the city promotes its history extends beyond the APT and includes gift shops with few diverse titles — and lagging promotion of smaller tour companies.

Too often, Williams said, stories about the diverse people who shaped Philadelphia are treated as “auxiliary topics” to touch upon, instead of tales that should be “wrapped into every narrative of Philadelphia.”

“What are we afraid of?” she asked. “Why can’t we tell this history?”

That’s why it’s even more critical that the APT advocate for all guides, Fisher added — not just ones telling the same old stories.

“It would be really amazing if the APT took on that role seriously — what it means to really support people,” she said. “But the mistrust is so deep now.”

In the end, the APT’s idea for the invitation and behind-the-scenes Bible Society tour fizzled. But Skiba’s still banned.

In a recent interview, Smith, who took over in 2019, said Skiba — with his critical comments and refusal to relinquish access to the group’s Facebook page and address lists — was responsible for his own ouster.

“It was a private matter,” she said, “it was one individual that got nasty and caused chaos.”

In a later conversation, she added that the incident did represent a reflection point for the APT.

“We realized we have to be better listeners,” she said.

Ruane said that since Skiba’s departure, the board has launched a new diversity committee — an idea Skiba had promoted — and is preparing “action steps.” They’re also hosting lectures and reading groups on more diverse topics, she said. Membership is up, she added, but could not say if the new members were any more diverse.

“All of us on the board are still learning,” she said.

Skiba, for his part, says experiences at his day job, at the William Way Center, have taught him to understand his own privileges — and to listen and value others’ experiences, even if he doesn’t initially see how a comment or a proposal can hurt someone.

Even if he can’t rejoin APT, Skiba says he hopes they see the schism has the opportunity to rebuild and correct past mistakes.

“I think it’s real opportunity, a real chance, to make APT the organization it should have been, which is a diverse and welcoming organization truly representing the people whose stories it tells and the communities of Philadelphia,” he said.