Colonial Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg, a pre-revolutionary tourist attraction

For years, the story of slavery’s role in the colonial town (where free and enslaved black people made up more than half of the city’s 1,800 inhabitants in the 18th century), and more generally in America’s fight for independence has been played down.
From 1998 onward, a new emphasis on African-American perspectives led to “Enslaving Virginia”, a new representation of colonial life that casts costumed actors as slave leaders and slave owners while paying tourists find themselves in the roles of slaves.
Excerpts from the article of Dan Eggen, “In Williamsburg, the painful reality of slavery”, Washington Post, July 7, 1999: “The reenactments are so realistic that some audience members have attacked the white actors in the slave patrol, who have had to fight to keep their decorative muskets. And when some early performances drove young children to tears, Williamsburg added “debriefing” sessions afterward to help calm them. One visitor even attempted to lead his own revolt against the slave handlers. “There are only three of them and a hundred of us!” he yelled. The actors had to step out of character to refrain him”.
About the major difference park officials have noticed in the reaction of blacks and whites to the characterizations: “Although both groups unite in hissing at the slave patrol, whites tend to view the depictions as relics of the past while blacks draw comparisons to the present”.