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Living Legacy Project - 5 days/4 nights in Alabama, once a year in march, starting and ending in Alabama.

Montgomery Co. Maryland - 9 days/8 nights each year in April throughout the South, Once a year in April, starting and ending in Rockville, MD.

Civil Rights Heritage Tour of the South - 5 days/4 nights in Indiana, Atlanta, Alabama, and Louisville. Once a year in late April, starting and ending in Columbus, OH.

4Urban - Adult Learning Tour/Face-To-Face with Black History Tour through the Institute for Urban Development. Once a year in June, starting and ending in Omaha, NE; led by Preston Love

Fantastic Tours - Not Civil Rights tours, but African American History and Underground Railroad Tours

Gerber Tours - Black History tours in certain cities.

Great Adventure Tours - African American Heritage Trail, Detroit, Windsor and Niagara Falls.

Road Scholar - Niagara Falls, Underground Railroad
The Civil Rights Movement: Atlanta, Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham

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The Civil Rights Movement: Atlanta, Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham

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All address fields should be selected! Full name should be provided! The information you entered is not valid. Please try again. The information you entered is not valid. Please try again.

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Civil Rights Tours - Companies + Non-Profits

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Civil Rights Tours - Companies + Non-Profits

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Sojourn to the Past - http://www.sojournproject.org
- for students only

AS Travel - https://www.astravel.world/civil-rights-awareness-trip - Specializing in taking sports teams on trips

Distant Horizons - http://www.distant-horizons.com/sponsored-tours/civil-rights/ - 2 nights in Jackson, 1 night in Little Rock, 2 nights in Memphis, 2 nights in Montgomery + in conjunction with Nations Magazine

Educational Travel Adventures  -https://www.etadventures.com/itinerary/1811 - This tour includes the World of Coca Cola  & a behind-the-scenes tour of the CNN studio

Bright Spark Travel - https://www.brightsparktravel.com/student-tours/civil-rights-student-tours - Student tour company

Explorica - https://www.explorica.com/educational-tours/southern-civil-rights-tour.aspx - set tour- 5 days 4 nights - Atlanta, Alabama, Birmingham and Selma

Road Scholar - Group Travel or Alabama/Atlanta  or Mississippi - 8 day/7 night - set tours happening throughout the year, open registration

EP Tours - Atlanta + optional day in Birmingham https://www.efexploreamerica.com/educational-tour/atlanta-beyond-civil-rights-movement

Appleseed Expeditions - 4 days/3 nights - Tuskegee, Montgomery, Selma https://www.appleseedexpeditions.com/civil-rights-tour/

Deep South Circle Tour - 6 days https://www.deep-south-usa.com/alabama/fly-drives/civil-rights-circle-tour

Hemisphere Educational Travel - 4-5 days Alabama and Atlanta. Very little time at most sites but does a Joanne Bland’s full tour https://hemispheretravel.com/student-tours/civil-rights

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Experience history. Inspire the future. | Sojourn Project

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"The goal of teaching is to be able to instill confidence and skills in a student to go along with content knowledge and relate it to the student's life. Sojourn was able to do that with me by teaching me as a high school student more than just the history of the Civil Rights Movement, but to take action and be a voice of my community..."

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Camelot Tours

Adventure Bus Charter & Tours, Inc
P.O. Box 1540 150 Warrior Ave. | Sumiton, Alabama 35148
patdodd853@aol.com | (205) 648-2732

Elite Tours of Atlanta / Allstate Tours LLC
5410 St. Lo Lane | College Park, Georgia 30349
elitetoursofatl@gmail.com | (888) 597-3288

Kelton Tours Unlimited LLC
1625 Forrest Avenue | Gadsden, Alabama 35901
Administrator@KeltonToursUnlimited.com | (800) 543-5796

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nginx

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Reliable & Modern Motorcoaches | Starkville, MS | Knight Coach

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Knight Coach is a family owned and operated motorcoach provider in Starkville, MS. Perfect for sports teams, elderly and kids outings, family reunions, and so much more, call us at (662) 244-5773 to tour our facilities our schedule your next trip!

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Mississippi Delta

Civil Rights Veteran Charles “Mac” McLaurin will be happy to lead you through the Delta and share personal stories of his time in SNCC and serving as Ms. Hamer’s campaign manager.

Contact: charles.mclaurin1989@yahoo.com

Memphis

A Tour of Possibilities

Nashville
Soul of America Tours

New Orleans

Know NOLA Tours

Savannah, GA

Day Clean Journeys

San Antonio, TX

The Missions of San Antonio

www.aitscm.org

@TapPilamNation

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Civil Rights Movement & History of Memphis Tours Memphis, TN | A Tour of Possibilities LLC

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Interested in the history of Memphis and the Civil Rights Movement? A Tour of Possibilities is the perfect tour for you! Whether you're a local or a out-of-towner, you'll be sure to fall more in love with Memphis and learn a thing a two on A Tour of Possibilities. Call today!

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JoAnne Bland is a Civil Rights Movement Veteran and will make memories for you and your group.

CONTACT: Journeys for the Soul
Email Kim to book:  journeysforthesoul@gmail.com

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A journey that offers hope for the future

Take a Journey with us

​

Journey Director JoAnne Bland will take you on a riveting journey thru the uncivil accounts that took place during the Civil Rights movement touring various landmarks throughout Selma, Alabama

"Elections aren't just about who votes but who don't vote."

Michelle Obama

Who is JoAnne Bland?

GALLERY

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Journeysforthesoul with Joanne Bland Joanne Civil Rights Selma Alabama

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A journey that offers hope for the future Take a Journey with us ​ Journey Director JoAnne Bland will take you on a riveting journey thru the uncivil accounts that took place during the Civil Rights movement touring various landmarks throughout Selma, Alabama "Elections aren't just about who votes but who don't vote."

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Ms. Ann Clemons

Triple E. Group Services

Michelle Browder/More Than Tours

CONTACT:  More Than Tours

Ms. Wanda Battle

CONTACT:  Legendary Tours

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Step-on-Guide – Providing expert guide service with a personal touch. Assisting driver with directions, ensuring site reservations, lodging and meal arrangements are fulfilled.  Troubleshooting unexpected occurrences. Presenting an invigorating narration of stories about Montgomery and surrounding areas. Tour Escort – Serve as tour escort to groups traveling to more than one city in Alabama and beyond.  Read More ...

Triple E Group Services is a professional tour guide company providing, step-on-guide, group escort and event planning services. We will plan and coordinate customized Historical tours for college and school groups, family and military reunions; assist with coordinating and arranging weekend retreats and special events as well as locate and arrange transportation with reputable motor Read More ...

“It’s not just a tour – it’s an experience” The Montgomery Civil Rights Tours include but are not limited to the following sites: The Rosa Parks Library and Museum is located on the site where the actual arrest of Mrs. Parks took place in 1955.  Inside the museum, the displays include a replica of the Read More ...

Step-on-Guide – Providing expert guide service with a personal touch. Assisting driver with directions, ensuring site reservations, lodging and meal arrangements are fulfilled.  Troubleshooting unexpected occurrences. Presenting an invigorating narration of stories about Montgomery and surrounding areas. Tour Escort – Serve as tour escort to groups traveling to more than one city in Alabama and beyond.  Read More ...

“You carefully facilitate our Montgomery & Selma Dr. King Freedom Trail Mission Trip with such excellence and heart, everyone wants to do it again. Thank you! You helped the “On Sacred Ground” certificates become a reality and every one are so, so very appreciative and awed. Thank you. They all received the certificates Friday night Read More …

Triple E Group Services is a professional tour guide company providing, step-on-guide, group escort and event planning services. We will plan and coordinate customized Historical tours for college and school groups, family and military reunions; assist with coordinating and arranging weekend retreats and special events as well as locate and arrange transportation with reputable motor Read More ...

“It’s not just a tour – it’s an experience” The Montgomery Civil Rights Tours include but are not limited to the following sites: The Rosa Parks Library and Museum is located on the site where the actual arrest of Mrs. Parks took place in 1955.  Inside the museum, the displays include a replica of the Read More ...

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Impeccable Service -- Incredible Experience!

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Jake Williams is an expert on Montgomery and Selma

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National Museum for African American History and Culture

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National Museum for African American History and Culture

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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Explore permanent exhibitions on view at the Museum along with past special exhibitions, and digital only experiences.

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1964 Freedom Summer Trail in Hattiesburg, MS

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1964 Freedom Summer Trail in Hattiesburg, MS

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The sites on the 1964 Freedom Summer Trail and audio tour were chosen to commemorate and honor those who participated in the Civil Rights Movement in Hattiesburg in the 1960s.

Freedom Summer was the 1964 voter registration drive that took place all over the state of Mississippi, with Hattiesburg serving as the largest Freedom Summer area in the state. It helped awaken the consciousness of the nation as Americans watched what happened on nightly news programs and read reports in the daily papers.

With a focus on increasing black voter registration, Freedom Summer workers included white volunteers from out-of-state and participants from the Hattiesburg area.

As you visit each site, you will have the opportunity to listen to reflections of some who were directly involved in Freedom Summer activities.
Listen to Tour Intro

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The sites on the 1964 Freedom Summer Trail and audio tour were chosen to commemorate and honor those who participated in the Civil Rights Movement in Hattiesburg in the 1960s. Freedom Summer was the 1964 voter registration drive that took place all over the state of Mississippi, with Hattiesburg serving as the largest Freedom Summer area in the state.

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Civil Rights Movement in St. Augustine, FL

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Civil Rights Movement in St. Augustine, FL

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Civil Rights Movement in Saint Augustine, FL

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Arkansas Civil Rights History Audio Tour

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Discover the people and places that helped shape our great state in these fascinating audio tours.

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Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown DC Heritage Trail

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Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown DC Heritage Trail

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Check out the Civil War to Civil Rights audio tour hosted by NPR's Korva Coleman!

Follow the signs on this self-guided Cultural Tourism DC Neighborhood Heritage Trail to learn more about Washington's Downtown, just east of the White House.

Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail' s 21 poster-sized, illustrated signs combine storytelling with historic images. Discover the little-known sites that link the history of the city to the history of the nation.

Walkers are encouraged to follow the trail at their own pace, sampling neighborhood character, businesses, and restaurants along the way.

For more information, email us at info@CulturalTourismDC.org or call 202-355-4280.

WHAT YOU'LL SEE

Walk in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Walt Whitman, and other great Americans whose lives were intertwined with the history of the nation and its capital city.

The trail focuses on Washington's experiences during the Civil War as well as the continuing challenge to realize the American dream of equal rights for all citizens.

Along the way, you'll see:

A former boarding house frequented by the Lincoln conspirators

The alley down which John Wilkes Booth fled after shooting President Lincoln

The home and office of famed Civil War nurse and American Red Cross founder Clara Barton

A church that was used as a hospital during the Civil War

The city's oldest synagogue, now a museum of Jewish history

A Renaissance palace style office building-turned-building museum

The hotel where the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put the finishing touches on his "I Have a Dream" speech

EXPLORE THE DOWNTOWN HERITAGE TRAIL

Cultural Tourism DC has 17 self-guided heritage trails for people to experience the distinct neighborhoods of Washington, DC. Watch as Sam Edelstein, a former staff member at Cultural Tourism DC, visits sites along the Downtown Heritage Trail and highlights the exciting and fun places and people you will meet along the way.

THREE WAYS TO EXPERIENCE DOWNTOWN

Designed so that you may enter at any point along the trail, the tour is arranged in three one-hour loops:

The Center Loop, the heart of the Downtown Heritage Trail along Seventh, F, and Tenth streets focuses on Washington at the time of the Civil War as well as Lincoln's assassination. This is the neighborhood of Clara Barton, Walt Whitman, and John Wilkes Booth, and an area often visited by Abraham Lincoln. Start this loop at the National Archives, accessible from the Archives/Navy Memorial Metro station at Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The West Loop takes you into a former residential neighborhood. Jefferson Davis attended one of its churches before the Civil War, and President Lincoln attended another during the conflict. Here you will see one of the city's most venerable African American churches, the magnificent U.S. Treasury, and the hotel where the term "lobbyist" was coined. Access this loop from the Metro Center Station at 13th and G streets, NW.

The East Loop continues the story of the struggle for equal rights for all citizens. Here Daniel Webster worked to hold the Union together. And in 1862, eight months before the Emancipation Proclamation, Washington's old City Hall was the site of "compensated emancipation" in the District. Ten churches and former synagogues stand as the legacy of the city's early immigrant communities. Access this loop from Judiciary Square Station at F Street between Fourth and Fifth streets, NW.

Would you prefer to take a guided tour?

DOWNLOAD IT NOW

Download the trail map PDF.

Download the trail guidebook PDF.

Want to surround yourself with sound as you walk the trail? Check out the Civil War to Civil Rights audio tour hosted by NPR's Korva Coleman. It's the first of Cultural Tourism DC's Audio Journeys.

These free tours take listeners by the ear and lead them through the streets of Washington, telling the city's great stories in dramatic fashion. The tour is organized in three 45-minute loops.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA NEIGHBORHOOD HERITAGE TRAILS

Cultural Tourism DC, Inc., initiated the District of Columbia Neighborhood Heritage Trails program with two goals in mind: helping visitors find their way around Washington's historic neighborhoods and promoting community pride.

Each trail was conceived with the active involvement of neighborhood organizations and residents. For Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail, the Downtown DC Business Improvement District served as a local partner.

Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail is a project of Cultural Tourism DC with support from the Downtown DC Business Improvement District, DC Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Federal Highways Administration. Special thanks to Gelberg Signs for its in-kind contribution of banners.

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Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail

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Check out the Civil War to Civil Rights audio tour hosted by NPR's Korva Coleman! Follow the signs on this self-guided Cultural Tourism DC Neighborhood Heritage Trail to learn more about Washington's Downtown, just east of the White House. Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail' s 21 poster-sized, illustrated signs combine storytelling with historic images.

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Hear historic information about civil rights attractions in Montgomery, AL along with excerpts from the civil rights pioneers who made a difference. Follow the path of civil rights history in Montgomery, AL.

Listen Now

Listen to the audio tracks now through our player below as you follow along on your downloaded copy of the Walking Tour brochure PDF.

Download the Walking Tour brochure (PDF 610kb)*

Download the Civil Rights Walking Tour audio files (ZIP MP3 65.9mb)

Tour Later

Are you planning a visit to Montgomery? Stop by the Montgomery Visitor Center, located downtown at 300 Water Street, in Historic Union Station. Here you can rent an MP3 player and follow the path of history as you visit the pivotal sites of the civil rights movement. The audio program, which provides a self-guided walking or driving tour of Montgomery's Civil Rights sites, was created by Alabama Public Television. The audio program includes 21 tracks with information about the places and people who were instrumental in the Civil Rights movement, featuring their voices and unique stories, and enhanced by sound effects that help transport the listener to the place and time.

* The Walking Tour brochure is a PDF file that requires you to have a PDF reader to view. If you do not have one on your computer, you can download one at Adobe's website for free.

This program is sponsored by Alabama Power Foundation, the City of Montgomery, Montgomery County, the Alabama Bureau of Tourism & Travel, and the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Convention & Visitor Bureau.

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Hear historic information about civil rights attractions in Montgomery, AL along with excerpts from the civil rights pioneers who made a difference. Follow the path of civil rights history in Montgomery, AL. Listen to the audio tracks now through our player below as you follow along on your downloaded copy of the Walking Tour brochure PDF.

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Check Out the 2024 U.S. Civil Rights Trail Travel Guide

This year's guide includes regional itineraries with editorial content that group planners and tour operators can use to plan tours along the trail.

Discover The Guide

U.S. Civil Rights Trail Welcomes Four New Sites

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail is proud to add four important landmarks to the collection of 130-plus U.S. Civil Rights Trail sites.

Bringing Birmingham's civil rights story to the world

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail Market wins major award

What Happened Here Changed the World

On the 60th Anniversary of the September 15, 1963 bombing that killed 4 young girls at the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL we remember what it means.

16th Street Baptist Church

Rick Steves discusses the origins of the Trail

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail was featured on a recent episode of Travel with Rick Steves. Listen to the conversation between Rick and Lee Sentell as they discuss the trail's beginnings and the U.S. Civil Rights Trail's growth and expansion.

The fight for American civil rights spanned decades, cities and states - from Topeka, Kansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, from Atlanta, Georgia, to Selma, Alabama and all the way to Washington, D.C. Chart the course of the Movement through the Civil Rights Trail and see firsthand the struggle for equity and the power of equality.

Landmarks

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail is a collection of churches, courthouses, schools, museums and other landmarks across 15 states that played a pivotal role in advancing social justice in the 1950s and 1960s, shifting the course of history.

Stories

From powerful speeches to brave sit-ins and unifying marches, the fight for civil rights in America can be told through countless sites and stories that have the power to awe and inspire everyone.

Experience

Experience

Walk in the footsteps of giants. Actually visit the places where the Civil Rights Movement was forged. Create your itinerary and see firsthand how the face of a nation was changed forever.

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Explore the fight for U.S. civil rights - US Civil Rights Trail

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Chart the course of the Civil Rights Movement through the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. Discover the destinations important to the Civil Rights Movement.

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Civil Rights Travel keeps a compiled list of tour companies that offer guided tours with set dates.

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It's easy to visit most historic sites on your own, but there are reasons to take a guided civil rights tour of the South. On a practical level, it lets someone else worry about the driving and choose the restaurants, and more importantly, the trips are often guided by extraordinary experts to help put the history and sites into perspective.

It's quite easy to customize an educational civil rights tour of the South for a family, class, community organization or church. Generally you'll need a minimum of 15 to book a custom tour. Throughout the year, many groups and colleges and alumni associations also offer trips to significant sites, usually on multi-day bus tours. Most are open to everyone.

Book a specialty civil rights tour of the South

The following group tours are open to everyone, and include newly announced 2021 tours.

Trafalgar Tours offers a new comprehensive nine-day Journey Along the Civil Rights Trail tour taking travelers from Memphis to Atlanta. It covers most the important spots we recommend on a Deep South tour, including Emmet Till sites on the Mississippi Civil Rights Trail. Tours begin in September 18, 2021, and start at $2,675.

The New York Times offers a six-day "Civil Rights Trail in Alabama" tour visiting Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma and Tuskegee. The trip runs $5,195, and runs Oct. 18-23, 2021. It includes a visit with Peggy Wallace Kennedy, daughter of segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

The Smithsonian Institution covers much of the same territory in its six-day "Cradle of the Movement: Civil Rights in Alabama" tour. It starts at $4,795, and is scheduled to run May 17 - 22, 2021, and Oct 11 - 16, 2021.

Road Scholar offers an eight-day Heart of the Civil Rights Movement tour visiting Atlanta, Montgomery and Birmingham, beginning in September, 2021, starting at $2.099.

Grand Circle Travel offers an extensive 11-day "Let Freedom Ring!" tour from Jackson, Mississippi to Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery, before ending in Mobile, Alabama. Tour dates are available beginning in September, 2021, and start at $3,275. For first-time travelers, earn a $100 discount by mentioning name Lawrence B and Customer Number 2966437

The Alabama Civil Rights Tourism Association offers six-day journeys through the state that was at the heart of the movement, with visits to Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma. Trips are scheduled throughout 2021. Guest guides include Wanda Battles, whose family helped transport riders during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Peggy Wallace Kennedy, daughter of segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace. Trips start at $2,395.

plans to offer an extensive week long trip Sept. 26 - Oct. 3, 2021, through Jackson, Mississippi; Memphis; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. The trip starts at $4,340 and is led by Andre Robert Lee, a teacher and filmmaker. Watch an excerpt of a trip below:

The University of Pennsylvania Alumni Association has a four-day tour focused on Alabama in October 2021, led by professor Herman Beavers. It runs Oct. 14-17, 2021, and starts at $1,465.

Distant Horizons, a sponsor of alumni association tours, has a special trip in spring 2021, visiting Jackson, Little Rock, Memphis and Montgomery. It's also led by teacher and filmmaker Andre Robert Lee. A Commonwealth Club trip runs April 11-18, 2021; and a St. Olaf College trip runs April 17-28, 2021.

The Montgomery County, Maryland Office of Civil Rights offers an annual Educational Freedom Experience trip leaving from the Washington, D.C. area, and visiting Greensboro, North Carolina; Atlanta; Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham, Ala.; Jackson and Money, Mississippi; and Memphis, Tenn., before motoring back to Maryland. Dates have not yet been set for 2o21.

Likewise, Columbus, Ohio-based Heritage Tours is offering a six-day bus tour from April 18-23, 2022, visiting Louisville, Kentucky; Tennessee; Alabama and Atlanta.

Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA, offers an annual Returning to the Roots of Civil Rights Tour, which usually runs in June.

If you don't mind driving yourself, UK based Trailfinders offers a 12-day Civil Rights & the Soulful South self-drive tour from Atlanta through Alabama to New Orleans. The £960 per-person price includes rental car, hotels and museum admissions. Airfare, and car rental drop-off fee not included.

Global Works Travel offers a teen summer tour from June 28 to July 12, 2021, visiting Atlanta, Alabama, Mississippi, Memphis and New Orleans. Participants take part in community service projects during the trip. Priced at $4,295.

Tour companies

One of the best is Freedom Lifted, a Chicago company run by a woman with roots in the South.

Sojourn to the Past, a California-based non-profit, has been giving tours since 1999 and has developed deep connections in the Deep South. The tours hit all the major civil rights sites from Georgia to Arkansas, and adds in some surprises too. While most programs are designed for students, it does offer trips that can include families.

School trip planners
Note: If you book travel or purchase a product through one of our affiliate links, we may receive a fee or commission.

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It's easy to visit most historic sites on your own, but there are reasons to take a guided civil rights tour of the South. On a practical level, it lets someone else worry about the driving and choose the restaurants, and more importantly, the trips are often guided by extraordinary experts to help put the history and sites into perspective.

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Road trip advice from our friends at Civil Rights Travel

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While the key battles of the modern Civil Rights movement focused on the Deep South, monuments, memorials and museums honoring the struggle can be found across the country.

A civil rights road trip will generally take several days, and cover hundreds of miles. Don't rush. For many travelers, the joy of these journeys are the unexpected conversations you'll have, and the people you'll meet.

In each of the cities, we offer guidance on the top sites and their history, putting the story of the civil rights movement into context. Independent travelers can make the trip easily.

However, guided tours can bring the history to life. In most major locations, you can get a tour from a local resident, who often participated in the civil rights movement themselves.

Top guides include Joanne Bland in Selma, who marched on Bloody Sunday; Jake Williams in Montgomery, who participated in the Selma march; and Tom Houck in Atlanta, who worked as a driver for Martin Luther King Jr. You'll need to book these ahead of time.

And if you're in Atlanta, you can sign up for a tour to see Alabama's major civil rights sites on a 12-hour tour with transportation that will take in key landmarks in Birmingham, Selma, Montgomery and Tuskegee.

Finally, if you just want to leave the tour planning to someone else, find information about multi-day group tours here.

However you plan to visit, here are the major civil rights road trip routes to consider:

Dive into the Deep South

The classic Civil Rights Trip takes travelers from Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthplace in Atlanta through Montgomery, Alabama's famed " Lynching Memorial," to Selma and Birmingham. From there, it's a few hours through Mississippi to Memphis, site of King's assassination.

This just scratches the surface. If possible, you'll want to add visits to places like Tuskegee, home to the famed Airmen, who battled in World War Two and the infamous syphilis study, along with extra time in Mississippi, to see sites associated with the brutal killing of Emmett Till, and the modern, moving Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson.

Southeast spur

Others start a southeast trip in Washington, D.C. home to the stunning Smithsonian African-American History museum and the King memorial, and then traveling to the Moton School in Farmville, site of one of the most inspiring student protests in the movement. Then it's an easy drive to Greensboro, North Carolina, home to the famous Woolworth's sit-ins.

Mid-South flashpoints

The civil rights battle wasn't limited to the Deep South. One great thing about the U.S. Civil Rights Trail is that it has introduced visitors to historic sites they may never have known about.

For example, Nashville played an out-sized role in civil rights history, although it doesn't often make the list for many travelers. But it's a great city and can easily be combined with visits to Memphis, site of King's assassination, and one of the top civil rights museums in the country, and with Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the National Guard had to integrate the school.

This trip easily combines with visits to sites in Mississippi and Alabama.

The ultimate Civil Rights Journey

If you can invest over a week and more than one thousand miles of driving, it's possible to take in all the major sites. For much of the route, you're following the path of the Freedom Riders.

You'd start in Washington, D.C., with its museums and monuments, and head to Farmville, Virginia for the Moton Museum, then dip into Greensboro, North Carolina, for the Woolworth counter that kicked off the sit-in museum.

Then it's a straight shot south to Atlanta to take in the major Martin Luther King Jr. sites, before heading to Montgomery, Selma and then Birmingham, Alabama. After that, it's time to head to Jackson's stunning Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, before heading up to Greenwood for sites associated with Emmett Till.

After that, it's an easy drive to Memphis for the Lorraine hotel, site of King's assassination.

Of course, you could add even more, adding Little Rock's Central High School; the University of Mississippi in Oxford; and the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. In short, there's history to be found across the country.
If you book travel or make a purchase through one of our partner or affiliate links, we may receive a fee or commission.

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Plan a Civil Rights Road Trip to see where history was made. Most of these trips will take several days, and cover hundreds of miles. Don't rush. For many travelers, the joy of these journeys are the unexpected conversations you'll have, and the people you'll meet.

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by our friend Deborah D. Douglas. This is a MUST for anyone taking a road trip to the South.

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"With this superb book-at once a reference work and a travel guide-about locations pivotal to the U.S. civil rights movement, Douglas raises the bar for other historically oriented travel books...Laden with information, this affecting guide provides a nuanced and powerful representation of Black Americans' fight for freedom and equality. For every library."-Library Journal

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"With this superb book-at once a reference work and a travel guide-about locations pivotal to the U.S. civil rights movement, Douglas raises the bar for other historically oriented travel books...Laden with information, this affecting guide provides a nuanced and powerful representation of Black Americans' fight for freedom and equality.

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Great for groups who want to plan travel themselves.

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Civil Rights Tour Group Planning Guide

Use these tools to plan group travel to Civil Rights Movement sites in the Deep South. Customize your itinerary and connect with local experts rooted in Black communities. Perfect for schools, faith-based communities, colleges, and organizations.

Templates to help you budget, set goals and draft your itinerary.

Digital resources for connecting with local guides, eating great food, and visiting must-see sites, available in your own account for 1 or 3 years.

Options for consultation with Mia, who can help you make the best use of the resources and customize your tour to meet the needs of your group.

Facilitator and Civil Rights Educator

Mia Henry

Mia has personally led dozens of Civil Rights tours for youth and adults to Alabama, Mississippi, and other key regions in the U.S. Deep South. Mia was born and raised in the South, the daughter of Civil Rights activists. Mia has more than 25 years of experience in civic and history education, nonprofit management, facilitation, youth development, and intergenerational community organizing. In addition to work at Freedom Lifted, Mia has served as the executive director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, the founding director of the Chicago Freedom School, and the associate director of Mikva Challenge. Mia earned her B.S. from Rutgers University and her M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania.

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The consummate planner with a strong sense of mission

Theresa, Collins, Francis W. Parker School, Chicago, IL

Mia is the consummate planner, considering every single detail and logistical possibility. Even better than her meticulous mind is Mia's strong sense of mission. Mia offers much more than a travel experience. She offers transformational experiential education that inspires and impacts.

Knowledge, passion, and ability to connect

Rev. Scott Spencer, Pastor, Woodridge Congregational Church, Cranston, RI

Mia's personal knowledge of the region, passion for its Civil Rights history, and ability to connect us with local social justice leaders and Civil Rights veterans deepened our experience and challenged us to rethink our own social justice commitments.

Exceptionally thorough and thoughtful

Nancy Nagramada, Head of Upper School The San Francisco School, CA

Mia is exceptionally thorough and thoughtful. The combination of her skills as a veteran educator to design meaningful learning experiences and her logistical prowess to organize it all will no doubt make your Civil Rights study trip a transformative one.

Worked tirelessly to support me and my students

Mike Pavlis, Brooklyn East Collegiate High School

Mia gave me all the tools to take my students from Brooklyn on a trip throughout Alabama. She connected me with foot soldiers to meet, suggested museums and sites, tour guides, hotels and restaurants, and outlined a schedule that maximized our time and was both financially workable and easily replicable year after year. Mia was incredibly patient and worked tirelessly to support me and our students. Five years later our program owes everything to her! #BEC2BAMA

Live Calls

Personalized calls with Mia to help you plan a tour that meets the needs of your particular group. Support might include refining goals, setting a budget, tips for fundraising, and help planning a pre-trip orientation. Calls include as many group members as you'd like.

Swag Bags

Gifts in the mail! We'll send you two copies of the Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail Guide by Deborah D. Douglas, two tote bags, two journals, and more!

Bonus enrollment

Access to the digital guide for another person from your group.

Customized Travel Plan

A detailed follow up report which includes a suggested itinerary and specific contacts and resources relevant to your group's goals and planned activities.

Want to learn more?

Schedule a free 20-min consultation to ask questions and get a short demo of the online materials.

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Plan a Civil Rights Tour for Your Group!

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Use these tools to plan group travel to Civil Rights Movement sites in the Deep South. Customize your itinerary and connect with local experts rooted in Black communities. Perfect for schools, faith-based communities, colleges, and organizations. Templates to help you budget, set goals and draft your itinerary.

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SNCC focused on voter registration and on mounting a systemic challenge to the white supremacy that governed the country's entrenched political, economic and social structures.

Young activists and organizers with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (pronounced "SNICK"), represented a radical, new unanticipated force whose work continues to have great relevance today. For the first time, young people decisively entered the ranks of civil rights movement leadership. They committed themselves to full-time organizing from the bottom-up, and with this approach empowered older efforts at change and facilitated the emergence of powerful new grassroots voices...

Continue reading The Story of SNCC "

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SNCC focused on voter registration and on mounting a systemic challenge to the white supremacy that governed the country's entrenched political, economic and social structures. Young activists and organizers with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (pronounced "SNICK"), represented a radical, new unanticipated force whose work continues to have great relevance today.

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An incredible visual interactive honoring the struggle for Voting Rights in Selma and the work that must be done today to ensure voting equality. Created by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

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A visual history of The Civil Rights Movement leading to The Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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Poor People's Campaign

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We Rise: A Movement Songbook draws on a rich history of social movement music, both old and new. From Spirituals to Labor songs, from Freedom Songs of the Civil Rights Movement to the music rising up from our struggles today, this compilation of movement music is meant to give people ways to join. To remember. To affirm. To honor. To rage. To celebrate. To practice new ways of being in relationship with one another and the earth. To envision and create a world that is just and habitable for future generations.

We offer this songbook as a gift to the movement in hopes that the practice of raising our voices together will enable us to honor our pasts, learn from one another, and begin to envision a just society where Everybody and Being has a Right to Live.

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We Rise: A Movement Songbook draws on a rich history of social movement music, both old and new.

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3 min

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In the 1930s, a black postal carrier from Harlem named Victor Green published a book that was part travel guide and part survival guide. It was called The Negro Motorist Green Book, and it helped African-Americans navigate safe passage across America well into the 1960s. Explore some of the segregated nation's safe havens and notorious "sundown towns" and witness stories of struggle and indignity as well as opportunity and triumph.

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This Man Created the Finest Black Hotel in America

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In the 1930s, black postal carrier Victor Green published The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide for African-Americans on how to safely navigate through the segregated US. Find safe havens and "sundown towns" and hear tales of both pain and triumph.

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Meeting Up With a Key Member of the Little Rock Nine

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Meeting Up With a Key Member of the Little Rock Nine

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The Smithsonian Institution is home to some seriously amazing objects with seriously amazing stories to tell about people who have taken risks and made history. From daredevil spacesuits to the dress worn by one of the Little Rock Nine, and from a top hat firefighting helmet to artwork wrestled back from Nazi raiders, we celebrate items that collectively remind us of the remarkable things we are capable of doing when we put everything on the line.

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Meeting up with a Key Member of the Little Rock Nine

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The Smithsonian Institution is home to some seriously amazing objects with seriously amazing stories to tell about people who have taken risks and made history.

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Outstanding short documentary on Ms. Hamer's life

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CNN: SNCC's legacy: A civil rights history

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TED-Ed

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Christina Greer: How one journalist risked her life to hold murderers accountable

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In the late 1800's, lynchings were happening all over the American South, often without any investigation or consequences for the murderers. A young journalist set out to expose the truth about these killings. Her reports shocked the nation, launched her journalism career and a lifelong pursuit of civil rights.

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TED-Ed (4 min)

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Christina Greer: Notes of a native son: the world according to James Baldwin

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In the 1960s, the FBI amassed almost 2,000 documents in an investigation into one of America's most celebrated minds. The subject of this inquiry was a writer named James Baldwin, one of the best-selling black authors in the world at the time. What made him loom so large in the imaginations of both the public and the authorities?

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Curated by the Zinn Education Project (ZEP), this invaluable archive of lessons and resources on social movement history can be explored by theme, time period and/or type. ZEP is a collaboration between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

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The Zinn Education Project is my compass in a sea of corporate textbooks, packaged common core curriculum and standardized testing. My entire curriculum is based on lessons that can be found on the Zinn Education Project.

High School Social Studies Teacher, Portland, Ore.

Your support is needed to help more students learn people's history. 100% of Zinn Education Project funding comes from individuals like you. Donate today.

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

From voter ID laws to voter-roll purges, gerrymandering to poll closures to the deadly in-person voting conditions during a pandemic, the right to vote is under attack and the stakes are high. It is critical that students learn about the fight for voting rights, past and present.

Nov. 30, 1924: Shirley Chisholm Born...

Teaching About the Violence in Palestine and Israel...

I can UNDERSTAND pessimism, but I don't BELIEVE in it. It's not simply a matter of faith, but of historical EVIDENCE. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give HOPE, because for hope we don't need certainty, only POSSIBILITY.

-Howard Zinn

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Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

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The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people's history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. Based on the lens of history highlighted in Howard Zinn's best-selling book A People's History of the United States, the website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and reading level.

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This reading about the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike  is one of over 100 resources developed by Facing History and Ourselves on the Civil Rights Movement.  Out of all of their collection, we think the readings are easiest for anyone to complete at home. Also recommended in their resource readings is Why MLK Encouraged 225,000 Chicago Kids to Cut Class in 1963.

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By the 1960s, the walls of segregation were coming down in cities and towns across the nation. Many white and black Americans in Memphis took pride in the way their community had avoided the violence that accompanied integration in other places. Then on February 12, 1968, about 1000 of the city's 1100 sanitation workers went on strike. That strike soon revealed deep divisions within Memphis.

"The white community," writes journalist Joan Turner Beifuss, "saw 'issues,' either because it chose to or because it could not, in fact, see in any other way." One "issue" was whether government workers ought be unionized. Another was financial. Where would the city get the money to pay the raises? Still another focused on whether the workers were being "manipulated" by "outside agitators." To most African Americans, the strike had little to do with balanced budgets, union organizing, or interference from outsiders. In their eyes, the strike was about dignity and respect. That is why the strikers wore signs reading "I AM A MAN." The pay for a sanitation worker in 1968 was $1.80 per hour. Even those who worked full time were eligible for food stamps. Yet the jobs the workers performed were not only essential to the community but also dangerous. Not long before the strikes began, two men were crushed to death in a garbage packer on one of the trucks.

The Ministers Association, a group of black and white religious leaders in Memphis, tried and failed to bring the two sides together. When the talks broke down, African Americans organized daily marches up and down Main Street. On February 23, violence erupted in the city for the first time. Who was responsible? The police claimed marchers rocked a police car. The strikers insisted that the car crossed into their lane and brushed against a marcher. No one knows what really sparked the incident. What is known is that the police responded by spraying Mace into the faces of the marchers, including a number of ministers. As a result, tension mounted in an already tense city.

By early March, the police were arresting strikers and their supporters for sitting in at City Hall and keeping replacement workers from moving garbage trucks. On March 18, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in the city to show his support for the workers. At a rally, he told the workers, "Our society must come to respect the sanitation worker. He is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, disease is rampant." On March 28, King returned to Memphis to lead over 5000 people on a march through the city. Twenty minutes after it began, a group of young African Americans began breaking windows and looting stores. The police immediately moved in with tear gas and nightsticks. The marchers scattered, running for shelter. As a result of the violence, a curfew was imposed on the city and over 3,800 National Guardsmen arrived in Memphis to keep order.

King and two Memphis ministers, James M. Lawson and H. Ralph Jackson, held a press conference later that day. They expressed sorrow that a small group had disrupted the march. They also vowed that the protests would continue until a settlement was reached. The next day National Guardsmen escorted the marchers as they walked up and down Main Street. One later recalled, "I wore that ['I AM A MAN'] sign front and back. We had to go through all that just to be treated half-way fair. Somebody has to suffer for some good for somebody else. Anything good, there's somebody who suffered for it."

On April 3, as the strike dragged on, King came back to Memphis to lead yet another march. But before it could take place, a white assassin shot and killed the civil rights leader. The next day, April 5, 300 black and white members of the Ministers Association and the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance marched from St. Mary's Cathedral to City Hall. Rabbi James A. Wax spoke to the mayor on behalf of the two groups:

What we come here for this morning, sir, is to appeal to you out of the fervor of our hearts that this city shall be ruled with justice, and justice for all. I realize we live in a society of law and order. We must have laws. But I would remind you most respectfully, sir, that there are laws that are greater than the laws of Memphis and Tennessee--the laws of God.

The following day the President of the United States sent a federal negotiator to help settle the strike. This time, the two sides reached agreement on every issue but one. The last obstacle to a settlement was the demand for an immediate pay raise. Negotiators recommended a raise of ten cents an hour effective May 1, 1968 with an additional five cents per hour on September 1. The union accepted the proposal. City leaders were willing to go along with it but claimed they did not have enough money in the current budget to pay the raises. They were short by about $558,000. As negotiations once again came to a standstill, a private citizen offered a solution. Abe Plough, a Jewish philanthropist and businessman, offered to contribute the money for the raises provided that his name not be made public. The people involved agreed, but in time his identity became common knowledge.

While the two sides worked out the final details of a settlement, a number of people in Memphis decided that it was time for them to speak out. They formed a citizens group called "Memphis Cares" and sponsored an assembly on April 7 at Crump Stadium. About 7000 people applauded as black and white Americans voiced their concerns and expressed their support for the following statement:

We live in Memphis. It has been a good city, but far from perfect--much less perfect than many of us realized. Something happened here which laid bare a side of our common life to which all too many of us had been blind. We . . . solemnly, in the presence of God and of one another, pledge Ourselves . . . to the building of a city where people can trust one another, respect one another and respond to the needs of one another.

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By the 1960s, the walls of segregation were coming down in cities and towns across the nation. Many white and black Americans in Memphis took pride in the way their community had avoided the violence that accompanied integration in other places. Then on February 12, 1968, about 1000 of the city's 1100 sanitation workers went on strike.

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Standing Up by Sitting Down: Student Sit Ins 1960

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Standing Up by Sitting Down: Student Sit Ins 1960

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Designed for younger students, this lesson is created by and based on an exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN.

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Standing Up by Sitting Down a learning adventure created by the National Civil Rights Museum and sponsored by Verizon

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Teaching the Legacy of Lynching in the US

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Teaching the Legacy of Lynching in the US

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Developed by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), this is a vast collection of lesson plans based on the EJI’s reports Lynching in America and Slavery in America.

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Meet Medgar Evers: An Introduction to the Southern Freedom Movemet

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Meet Medgar Evers: An Introduction to the Southern Freedom Movemet

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This interactive lesson created by Teaching for Change introduces us to Medgar Evers’ work as field secretary of the Mississippi NAACP. This lesson is a part of a larger collection from Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching. Teaching for Change will release the newest version of this incredible resource  in 2020. In the meantime, check out selected lessons online right now!

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Medgar Wiley Evers was one of Mississippi's most impassioned activists, orators, and visionaries for equality and against brutality.

Teaching for Change prepared an interactive lesson to introduce students to his work and inspire them to learn more. The lesson is also designed as a pre-reading activity, providing an overview for students of the people, places, and issues in Evers' life.

Brief Background

Born July 2, 1925, in Decatur, Mississippi, Evers was one of four children born to James and Jesse Evers. Evers spent the most time with older brother Charles, whom he idolized because Charles protected him, taught him to fish, swim, hunt, box, wrestle, and to think about the world and their segregated schooling. In addition, Evers saw and witnessed acts of raw violence against Blacks; his parents and brother could not shield him from the realities of a society built on racial discrimination.

Evers was inducted into the United States Army in 1942. Though typical at the time, racial segregation in the military only served to anger Evers. By the end of the war, Evers was among a generation of Black veterans committed "to return [home] fighting" for change. The initial "fight" for Evers was to register to vote as an affirmation of citizenship. In the summer of 1946, along with his brother, Charles, and several other Black veterans, Evers registered to vote at the Decatur city hall. But on Election Day, the veterans were prevented by angry whites from casting their ballots.

The experience only deepened Evers's conviction that the status quo in Mississippi had to change. By 1954, Evers began an 8-year career as the Mississippi state field secretary for the NAACP, including the creating of youth councils. His organizing and murder investigations doubled the number of NAACP members who boycotted and agitated for justice in Mississippi. Murdered in the driveway to his house in 1963, his murderer was not brought to justice until 1994. Thanks to Medgar Evers, the groundwork was laid for the Mississippi freedom and voting rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. Read more.

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Meet Medgar Evers: Introduction to the Southern Freedom Movement - Civil Rights Teaching

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Medgar Wiley Evers was one of Mississippi's most impassioned activists, orators, and visionaries for equality and against brutality. Teaching for Change prepared an interactive lesson to introduce students to his work and inspire them to learn more. The lesson is also designed as a pre-reading activity, providing an overview for students of the people, places, and issues in Evers' life.

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This project provides information and lesson plans for high school and college classes that the expanse of Rosa Parks’ political work and commitments and the breadth of the Black struggle for justice across the 20th century. This was developed by historian Say Burgin, renowned Parks biographer Jeanne Theoharis, and the Center for Humanities, Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY).

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Protesting for Civil Rights on Long Island, March 1960

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Protesting for Civil Rights on Long Island, March 1960

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The Long Island Museum

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Protesting for Civil Rights on Long Island, March 1960 - The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages - Google Arts & Culture

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Gifts of Eugene and Bernice Burnett, 2014. Regionally around the United States, local Civil Rights events occurred in direct dialogue with national events,...

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Protesting for Civil Rights on Long Island, March 1960 - The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages - Google Arts & Culture

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Gifts of Eugene and Bernice Burnett, 2014. Regionally around the United States, local Civil Rights events occurred in direct dialogue with national events,...

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The Civil Rights Movement in the Bay Area

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The Civil Rights Movement in the Bay Area

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The Bancroft Library

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Social protest and change as told through The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Newspaper Photographs and News Stories

INTRODUCTION

Beginning after World War II and reaching critical mass by the 1960s, African Americans mobilized against discrimination and the Civil Rights Movement was born. Activists in the Movement demanded an end to segregation and fought for equality and fairness in education, housing, and employment opportunities. By the 1960's, the Civil Rights Movement, which began in the South, had reached California. Once the Movement took hold in the Bay Area, it brought together people from all races and backgrounds to fight against the social injustice that had become so ingrained in society. The fight was brutal and the victories were hard won. Some of the weapons that activists used in the fight were sit-ins, marches, pickets and parades.

This exhibit shows the struggles and triumphs during the Civil Rights Movement in the Bay Area through photographs and news stories from the News-Call Bulletin Newspaper during the period 1960-1965.

TRAGEDY IN BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

On Sunday, September 15th, 1963, four young African American girls were killed when a bomb exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Three days later, 2,500 people solemnly marched along Post Street in San Francisco to protest this tragedy. (News-Call Bulletin, September 18, 1963). Rabbi Alvin Fine, Chairman William Chester of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), United States attorney Cecil Poole, and Leonard Farmer spoke to the crowd filling the streets in front of the Post Office building.

CORE

The U.C. Berkeley Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) played a major role in organizing protests and sit-ins. Below and to the right are images of a sit-in at the Post Office protesting the Federal Governments inaction in the racial crisis in Mississippi. Demonstrators were carried from U.S. Attorney Cecil Poole's offices. They demanded that the U.S. Marshals be sent to Mississippi to protect civil rights workers after three African American civil rights workers disappeared. (News-Call Bulletin, June 26, 1964).

Protesters are dragged from the offices of U.S. Attorney Cecil Poole. Below, Poole addresses the protectors.

SELMA, ALABAMA

On March 8 1965, deadly racial violence had erupted in Selma, Alabama, as African Americans were attacked by state troopers while preparing to march to Montgomery to protest voting rights discrimination in Selma, Alabama.

"At least 67 Negroes were injured in the 30-minute melee Sunday when state troopers warned the marchers to stop - then hurtled into the demonstrators with clubs and dense clouds of yellow tear gas." (News-Call, March 8, 1964).

In San Francisco, demonstrators gathered in front of City Hall in San Francisco to protest the Federal Government's failure to intervene in the crisis in Alabama.

HOUSING

In the Bay Area, particularly in Berkeley, housing was segregated between white areas and minority areas. This form of discrimination was deeply ingrained and pervasive.

A Citizen's Committee to Study Discrimination in Housing was created in 1961. This Committee conducted interviews, controlled tests, telephone surveys, reviewed reports of the NAACP. They concluded "discrimination in housing is widespread and general, in both rental and sale of property" in Housing Discrimination in Berkeley: A Report by a Citizen's Committee to the Community Welfare in July of 1962 (p. 2). The evidence collected illustrated that white home owners, landlords and real estate agents enforced a practice of keeping minorities out of white neighborhoods. "The widespread belief was that when minorities came into 'good' neighborhoods, property values went down." (At Berkeley in the Sixties: Education of an Activist, 1961-1965. by Jo Freeman, p. 69).

The fight to enact fair housing laws was major struggle without an easy solution. Protests occurred in cities throughout California. Ordinances on fair housing were passed and repealed. Action finally occurred at the state level, with the passage of the Rumford Fair Housing Act.

JOBS

Discriminatory hiring practices were in place in many companies and organizations in San Francisco and the Bay Area, including Mel's Drive-In, the Sheraton Palace, the car dealerships on Auto Row, and the Bank of America. Protesters, organized by CORE and the Ad Hoc Committee to End Discrimination, began picketing these companies to force them the change their hiring practices to hire more minorities and to train them for better paying positions with greater opportunity.

Mel's Drive-In

Beginning on October 19, 1963, the Ad Hoc Committee to End Discrimination organized pickets of the San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley locations of Mel's Drive-In restaurants. Harold Dobbs was one of the owners of Mel's Drive-In and was running for mayor at the time. (Berkeley in the 60s by Jo Freemanp. 89). On the Saturday before the election, November 5, 1963, the Ad Hoc Committee picketed Dobbs home. The demonstrators conducted a mass sit-in of Mel's Drive-In, occupying all of the seats of the restaurant but refusing to order food. 59 protestors were arrested. Dobbs signed an agreement a week later with the Ad Hoc Committee to hire more African Americans in front of house positions.

Bill Bradley, chairman of the San Francisco chapter of CORE, was among those arrested in the Sheraton-Palace pickets. He was held in contempt of court for failing to appear and ordered to pay a fine of $500 or serve five days in prison. He stated he could not pay the fine. (News-Call Bulletin, June 1, 1964).

Rights Groups Split - The San Francisco NAACP and the Ad Hoc Committee to End Discrimination

Like CORE, these two organizations played major roles in mobilizing protesters and organizing demonstrations. However, the tactics and tone they employed were very different, which caused friction between the two groups. The NAACP, led by older, well-recognized Civil Rights leaders, believed the protests should take a more formal and measured approach. The mostly collegiate members of the Ad Hoc Committee did not heed the advice of the NAACP, as the defiance of the law and subsequent arrests at the Sheraton-Palace illustrate. On March 7, 1964, the President Francois of the NAACP openly expressed his frustrations with the actions of the Ad Hoc Committee, stating "I'm not at all certain I can continue to work with them under these circumstances - not when my advice is given so little consideration." (News-Call, March 7, 1964).

Bank of America

In May of 1964, CORE and the NAACP organized a picket of Bank of America to protest its discriminatory hiring practices. The picketing campaign included "bank-ins" in which demonstrators held up lines by window hopping from teller to teller and asking them to make change. "Several demonstrators asked for rolls of pennies and them insisted on breaking them open at the tellers window and counting them while customers fumed in lines behind them." (News-Call Bulletin, June 2, 1964). Bank of American entered into an agreement with the State Fair Employment Practice Commission to implement equal employment opportunity policies and hire more minorities. (News-Call, June 4, 1964)

EDUCATION

The residential segregation of black and white Bay Area residents was a major cause of the segregation of Bay Area schools. Max Rafferty, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1964 stated that the problem of school segregation "will not be solved so long as any American family is prevented from acquiring housing in any neighborhood where the family wants to live." (News-Call Bulletin, March 9, 1964). This was particularly evident in the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond and San Francisco. (Prophets of Rage: The black freedom struggle in San Francisco, 1945-1969 by Daniel Crowe, p. 72)

"While the courts were slowly enforcing the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, outlawing educational segregation in the South, schools in northern and western cities like Berkeley were becoming ever more segregated. The fact that northern and western segregation was "de facto," the result of residential patterns, rather than "de jure," the result of discriminatory laws, made little difference to civil rights activists." (Berkeley, A City in History by Charles Wollenberg).

There was no clear or easy answer, and despite some advances by Berkeley in public education, this issue was still unresolved by 1969. (Prophets of Rage: The black freedom struggle in San Francisco, 1945-1969 by Daniel Crowe, p. 78-79).

RESOURCES

News-Call Bulletin (selected dates 1960-1967).

Freeman, Jo. (2004). At Berkeley in the Sixties: Education of an Activist, 1961-1965. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Brilliant, Mark. (2010). The Color of America Has Changed: How racial diversity shaped civil rights reform in California 1941-1978. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Crowe, Daniel. (2000). Prophets of Rage: The Black Freedom Struggle in San Francisco, 1945-1969. New York, NY: Garland Publishing, Inc.

Wollenberg, Charles. Berkeley, A City in History.

Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library

NAACP Official and Civil Rights Worker: Tarea Hall Pittman

http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt4h4nb06r/

Civil Rights, Law, and the Federal Courts: The Life of Cecil Poole, 1914-1997

http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb4779n9p8/

Attorney, Judge, and Oakland Mayor: Lionel Wilson

http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt0d5n97hf/

A Calfornia Supreme Court Justice Looks at Law and Society, 1964-1996Allen E. Broussard

http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt0v19n4dr/

THE BANCROFT LIBRARY COLLECTIONS RELATED TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE BAY AREA

Collection Title: African Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area,

Date: 1963-1974

Collection Number: BANC PIC 1985.079- -AX

Extent: 140 black and white photographs 140 digital objects

Collector: James de Tar Abajian

Collection Title: Social protest collection

Date (inclusive): 1943-1982 Date (bulk): (bulk 1960-1975)

Collection Number: BANC MSS 86/157 c; BANC FILM 2757

Extent: Number of containers: 27 cartons, 2 oversize boxes, 1 card file box Linear feet: 33.87 Microfilm copies: 101 reels : positive and negative (BNEG 3106) ; 35 mm

Collection Title: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Region I, photograph collection

Date (inclusive): ca. 1940-1982

Collection Number: BANC PIC 1978.147

Creator: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Region 1 Office

Extent: 1 box (300 photographic prints) and 2 oversize photographic prints ; various sizes Linear feet: .4 72 digital objects

Title: Ralph J. Gleason letters to Alexander P. Hoffman, 1963.

Collection Number: BANC MSS 86/134 c

portfolio 1

Fourteen letters giving commentary on current events, including the Lenny Bruce trials, the civil rights movement, radio station KPFA in Berkeley, writers, jazz musicians, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Includes a letter from Gleason's wife, Jean, to Hoffman.

Title: Eldridge Cleaver photograph collection

Call Number: BANC PIC 1991.078

See also the Eldridge Cleaver papers BANC MSS 91/213 c

Title: Stephen Shames Black Panther photograph collection

BANC PIC 2002.078--AX

Images of Black Panther Party leaders, members, and others at various events and rallies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Included are Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, George Murray, Reies Tijerina, Charles Garry, Angela Davis, David Hilliard, Huey Newton, and George Jackson. Copyright Retained By Photograp

Stephen Shames website: http://www.stephenshames.com/index.php/projects/list/black_panther_party

Digital Curator - Regena Rosati, The Bancroft Library

The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not represent the views of the institutions whose collections include the featured works or of Google Arts & Culture.

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The Civil Rights Movement in The Bay Area - The Bancroft Library - Google Arts & Culture

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Social protest and change as told through The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Newspaper Photographs and News Stories INTRODUCTION Beginning after World War II and reaching critical mass by the 1960s, African Americans mobilized against discrimination and the Civil Rights Movement was born.

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Voters Across the Color Line: Atlanta and the Civil Rights Movement

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Voters Across the Color Line: Atlanta and the Civil Rights Movement

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Atlanta History Center

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VOICES ACROSS THE COLOR LINE: ATLANTA IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT - Atlanta History Center - Google Arts & Culture

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On February 1, 1960, four North Carolina A&T students entered a Woolworth store, sat down at the lunch counter to be served, and changed the course of hist...

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The Civil Rights Movement and Carnegie Hall

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The Civil Rights Movement and Carnegie Hall

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Carnegie Hall

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The Civil Rights Movement at Carnegie Hall - Carnegie Hall - Google Arts & Culture

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At the laying of its cornerstone in 1890, Andrew Carnegie said, "All good causes may here find a platform." Seventy years later, when voices began protesti...

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African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond

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African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond

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Smithsonian American Art Museum

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African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond - Smithsonian American Art Museum - Google Arts & Culture

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Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

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New Orleans, LA

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BMike and Erik Olivo giving a tour of Studio BE to a group of students. Credit... Akasha Rabut for The New York Times

BMike takes societal misinterpretations and stereotypes and flips them, putting historical figures in unexpected settings.

BMike and Erik Olivo giving a tour of Studio BE to a group of students. Credit... Akasha Rabut for The New York Times

This article is part of our latest special report on Museums, which focuses on the intersection of art and politics.
NEW ORLEANS - Usually, as groups of schoolchildren file through Studio BE here, they tip back their heads to gaze at the massive portraits of blackness painted by artist Brandan Odums, known as BMike - of civil-rights activists, Black Panthers, men mistreated by the criminal justice system, and everyday New Orleanians with important messages.

"I want the kids coming through here to see that they're worthy of being painted 12 feet tall with a halo, or just with beautiful colors," said BMike, 34. "I want to challenge the way people see things."

His work is motivated both by national incidents and by New Orleans's history of police violence against black citizens. A 2011 Department of Justice report said the city's police department had "a clear pattern of unconstitutional uses of force."

Chronicles of this mistreatment, compounded with high rates of wrongful convictions, can be viewed on the walls of Studio BE, like portraits of Angola 3 prisoners, Black Panther activists and cultural critics like the Free Southern Theater playwright Kalamu ya Salaam, who pushed back against the New Orleans Police Department.

BMike takes societal misinterpretations, tropes, and stereotypes and flips them, creating images of revolutionaries, artists and social-justice figures, often placed in unexpected settings.

Now, five years after an arts benefactor handed over the use of a former coffee warehouse to BMike, allowing him to found Studio BE there, he is known nationally for his work. He collaborates with some of the nation's highest-profile activists and artists, including Colin Kaepernick, the director Ava DuVernay, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and the singer Usher.

Still, BMike's family, including his mother, who is a native of New Orleans, keeps him humble. "My mom be like, 'Oh, he draws. That what he do - he draws,'" he said. "And if I think about it, that is what I do. I don't want it to be mysterious."

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BMike in front of Studio BE, a 35,000-square-foot former warehouse near railroad tracks, about a mile downriver from the French Quarter. His hoodie is printed with one of his favorite catchphrases: "I am my ancestors' wildest dreams." He attended high school about a block away, studying classical painting at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.

In the gallery's first room, BMike created a corridor of images about incidents with police, starting with some historical images of the Algiers 7, a deadly police-brutality case in the early 1980s. But an artist's duty is to reflect the times, BMike said, quoting the singer Nina Simone. And so several years ago, after the police shot and killed a number of people, most of them young men, he painted portraits of some of the dead. "I was seeing all these images of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown and Eric Garner and Oscar Grant and seeing these horrific images of their bodies," he said.

He decided to use it as an opportunity to paint what he wished could have happened, he said. He added halos behind their heads and the signs "I'm a Man," first carried by striking garbagemen who marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. "That affirms their humanity," BMike said. "The halos behind their heads also affirm their value."

A student from KIPP Morial Primary at an exhibit where a small, handmade basketball court is used to remind gallery visitors that, for young black men, the criminal-district courthouse was much more of a probability than professional basketball. A sign along the edge of the court reads: "1/3 black males will go to prison in their lifetime. 3/10,000 will go to the NBA."

From the entrance of the second gallery, it appears as though a long, continuous wall is painted with a single image, of Coretta Scott King facing her husband, Dr. King. Instead, walking closer, it becomes apparent the image is a diptych: each spouse is painted on a separate section of wall with a large space between them.

"You ask, 'What does that space represent? Because, as you investigate love, as you investigate their relationship, you see that this gap represents so much," BMike said. "And Coretta is looking at him like, 'I see you, but I see you.' It's no secret in terms of what people have said about Dr. King, in terms of some of his flaws. For so long, we've done a disservice to ourselves and to his legacy by trying to pretend as if he was superhuman. And we built this pedestal for him that he didn't build for himself."

The third gallery is built around a sculptural depiction of Hurricane Katrina, its storm clouds and its houses, submerged beneath the water. In one corner, a home's living room is painted purple to about 5 feet high, representing the floodwater lines that crept up most walls, after 80 percent of the city's houses flooded. "I'm exploring this conversation about New Orleans and what it means to be here," BMike said. "The responsibility of being here and knowing that, you know, so many people were displaced and yet we're here and what does that mean."

The puddle of water that is often part of that exhibit is unintended - it comes from a roof leak. "There was a point in time where we would shop-vac the water out. Because anytime it rains heavy, that'll happen," BMike said. "But it kept happening. So we decided, 'This is supposed to be here.'"

BMike portrays a well-known New Orleans tattoo artist, Taz. Instead of painting Taz's actual body ink, BMike made up the images that appear on his chest, including a portrait of Dr. King on his left chest, below the words "We Shall Overcome." Others show similar fighters and strivers. "So when you investigate the tattoos on his body, you see this reverence for the past, the sacrifices of the past and all these people - men and women - who joined the struggle so that Taz could even be the rebellious spirit that he is."

KIPP Morial students explore the studio, twisting the heads and bodies of sculptures to create unexpected combinations.

In the third gallery, which focuses on water, BMike painted an iconic image of a neighbor girl named Brooke, as part of his internal conversation about Katrina. (It is the same girl whose image is painted onto the outside of the warehouse.) "I was thinking about how, in New Orleans, the term Katrina has become a bookmark of sorts. Whenever you mention a moment and people ask, 'Was that before or after Katrina?'

"And so I was thinking about Brooke, who is now 5 years old. That bookmark doesn't exist for her personally. The idea is that she is inheriting this space. How will she fight for it? How will she allow it to be changed? So in the context of the neighborhoods that are shifting and how we deal with housing and Airbnbs, she's the one who will grow up in a new New Orleans."

The ship that emerges from a wall in the third gallery is left to interpretation, though it's painted across the hull with the word "refugees," a term used to describe Katrina evacuees, who saw it as a slur. This boat, a collaboration with the sculptor Rontherin Ratliff, may or may not be a reminder of that.

"It could be a Middle Passage boat, it could be a refugee boat, it could be Noah's Ark," BMike said. "The boat could represent that idea as well as just the metaphor of what it was like to be called 'refugees' after Katrina." Several feet away, a lighted sign on the wall above bouquets of flowers reads, "You are still here."

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This New Orleans Artist Challenges the Way People See Things (Published 2020)

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BMike takes societal misinterpretations and stereotypes and flips them, putting historical figures in unexpected settings. BMike and Erik Olivo giving a tour of Studio BE to a group of students. Credit... Akasha Rabut for The New York Times This article is part of our latest special report on Museums , which focuses on the intersection of art and politics.

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Normal Rockwell in the Age of the Civil Rights Movement

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Normal Rockwell in the Age of the Civil Rights Movement

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Norman Rockwell Museum

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Norman Rockwell in the age of the Civil Rights Movement - Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA - Google Arts & Culture

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On July 14, 1964, "The New York Times" ran a story titled, "A 2nd Body is Found in the Mississippi." Norman Rockwell tore this page from his newspaper and...

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Peabody Essex Museum

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Jacob Lawrence was one of the first artists to break through the color line of New York's segregated art world in the 1950s. Lawrence painted his series to show how women and people of color helped shape the founding of our nation. In that spirit, PEM's exhibition is curated by women and the two accompanying exhibition publications feature nearly 50 artists, scholars, and students who are either women and/or people of color. Alongside Lawrence's paintings, the exhibition presents the work of contemporary artists Hank Willis Thomas, Derrick Adams, and Bethany Collins. This is the first-ever museum presentation of Jacob Lawrence's Struggle series and will tour nationally through 2021.

For this reunion, 25 of the Struggle paintings are accounted for while five remain unlocated. Of these, the known works are presented alongside reproductions of the missing paintings as well as those too fragile to travel. The titles of each work are often entire phrases or quotations that reference a specific historical event.

Explore all 30 panels of Jacob Lawrence's Struggle series with related artworks and responses from dozens of distinct voices. Alongside featured artists, scholars and curators, are inspired responses from teens across the country. Read more in the exhibition catalog and American Struggle, Teens Respond to Jacob Lawrence, both of which can be found in PEM's shop.

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Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle Series Panels

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Jacob Lawrence was one of the first artists to break through the color line of New York's segregated art world in the 1950s. Lawrence painted his series to show how women and people of color helped shape the founding of our nation.

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Photos from the Civil Rights Movement: From Rosa Parks' Arrest to the Freedom Rides

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Photos from the Civil Rights Movement: From Rosa Parks' Arrest to the Freedom Rides

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High Museum of Art

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Photos From the Civil Rights Movement - High Museum of Art - Google Arts & Culture

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The High Museum of Art holds one of the most significant collections of photographs of the Civil Rights Movement. The works in this exhibition are only a s...

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Georgia Public Broadcasting

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A Journey to Educational Equality - Georgia Public Broadcasting - Google Arts & Culture

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After the *Plessy v. Ferguson* ruling in 1896 and through the early twentieth century, formalized racial segregation continued in the South, and signs an...

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The Revolution Will Not Be Televised... Exploring the Print Culture of the Civil Rights Movement

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The Revolution Will Not Be Televised... Exploring the Print Culture of the Civil Rights Movement

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Amistad Research Center

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"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised...." - Amistad Research Center - Google Arts & Culture

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Gil Scott-Heron's 1970 poem, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," offered a humorous but pointed critique of the relationship between the media and th...

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The Fight For Civil Rights - The Black Experience on Stamps

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The Fight For Civil Rights - The Black Experience on Stamps

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Smithsonian National Postal Museum

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The Fight For Civil Rights - The Black Experience on Stamps - Smithsonian's National Postal Museum - Google Arts & Culture

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The Fight For Civil Rights: MLK* *Martin Luther King, Jr.* was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, an...

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Georgia Public Broadcasting

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What Were the Freedom Rides? - Georgia Public Broadcasting - Google Arts & Culture

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One of the many civil rights organizations that evolved out of the protests of the early 1960s, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), als...

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Standing Up for Change: African American Women and the Civil Rights Movement

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Standing Up for Change: African American Women and the Civil Rights Movement

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National Women's History Museum

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As far back as the 19th century, African American women fought for civil rights. They resisted slavery. They spoke out against racism. They established women's clubs to improve conditions for African Americans. They worked in politics and journalism, organized black labor, and supported education. In the 20th century, they formed the backbone of the modern Civil Rights Movement. African American women were the critical mass, the grassroots leaders challenging America to embrace justice and equality for all.

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Standing up for Change: African American Women and the Civil Rights Movement - Google Arts & Culture

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Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

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Memphis history tour by Carolyn Michael-Banks

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Black History in Memphis: A Journey to Remember

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Part of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL

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at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN

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National Civil Rights Museum Virtual Reality Tour

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What Some of the Most Famous Civil Rights Sites Look Like Today

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What Some of the Most Famous Civil Rights Sites Look Like Today

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Smithsonian Channel Aerial America

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What is it that makes America's southern states "the South"? Is it the legacy of eclectic music, from hip-hop to blues to country? Is it the rich history that survived notorious pirates, epic battles, and human rights movements? Or is it the stunning Gulf Shores, cotton fields, and towering rocky peaks? Whatever it is, it's easy to understand why Southerners feel such a deep connection to their land. Join us on this soaring tour over a region rich with history, culture, and a rare American lure that can only be found in the South.

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What Some of the Most Important Civil Rights Sites Look Like Today

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What is it that makes America's southern states "the South"? Whatever it is, it's easy to understand why Southerners feel such a deep connection to their land. Join us on this soaring tour over a region rich with history, culture, and a rare American lure that can only be found in the South.