Interlude: The Civil Rights Sites We Visited

Mary and I were astounded by the variety and quality of the various sites and museums we were able to visit.  Our entire trip was from Arlington, Virginia to Las Cruces, New Mexico, but on the way out and the way back we saw many wonderful civil rights sites and museums.

We began planning our trip with an excellent internet site maintained by the National Park Services called the “We Shall Overcome” tour.  It lists many of the museums and sites available for visit, and gives a nice, one-page summary of the history of each site.

Atlanta, Georgia:  Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site:  This museum is right across the street from Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was raised and where he served his last call.  The church is now a museum you can visit.  You can also visit Martin’s birth home, which has been restored to the way it looked when he was growing up. The museum itself is rather small, but does a good job of going year by year through Martin’s life as it relates to the Civil Rights Movement.  There are beautiful grounds and a large mural outside depicting Martin’s life.  All of this is free of charge, although you need to reserve a ticket to visit the birth home. [See 8/2 Blog for pictures]

We also drove over to Morehouse College and Spellman College.  Spellman is where many of the women in the King family went to college (and where Martin lay in state prior to his funeral) and Morehouse is where Martin and A.D. King, his younger brother, attended college.   Although no specific tour is available, by asking around we were able to see the dorm Martin stayed in, the burial site of Dr. Benjamin Mays (long-time president of Morehouse who was very influential in Martin’s life and preached at his funeral on the campus).  We were also able to gain entrance to the Martin Luther King International Chapel, built in 1978.  

Birmingham, Alabama:  West (Kelly Ingram) Park has now been turned into a memorial for those who died in the marches and demonstrations of 1963.  This park was the assembly point for the sit-ins, marches, boycotts and jailings that were a part of the plan to end segregation in Birmingham.  Across the street from the park you can visit the 16^th Avenue Baptist Church,  which was also vital as a staging ground.  This is also the church that was bombed on September 15, 1963, resulting in the deaths of 4 girls attending Sunday School.  Around the corner from the park you can see the Gaston Hotel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. and many of the other organizers stayed much of the time they were in Birmingham.  This hotel was also bombed and is no longer operating.  On our own we were able to track down Zion Hill Baptist Church (which is now abandoned), which is where Martin, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Ralph Abernathy began their march the night they were arrested and jailed (resulting in Martin’s famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail.)

Also next to the park is the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.  This is an excellent museum detailing the long history of the Civil Rights Movement.  It is the second best museum we visited (see Memphis below).  There is a fee to visit ($12).

Montgomery, Alabama:   There are so many things to see and do here.  We toured both Dexter Avenue Baptist Church (Martin’s first call) and the parsonage in which he and Coretta lived (it was used as a parsonage until the 1990’s but then was restored to look much as it did when the Kings lived there.)  Both visits require reservations and cost $5.50 each. [See my 8/6/12 Blog for pictures]

A block from the church is the Southern Poverty Law Center, which houses a small museum focusing on hate crimes and honoring all the people who died (including many unknown) in the Civil Rights Movement.  The fee is $2.   A highlight there is the sculpture outside designed by Maya Lin, who also designed the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C.

Also downtown is the excellent Rose Parks Library and Museum, maintained by Troy University.  There is a small fee to visit.  Also downtown is the Freedom Rides Museum in the Historic Montgomery Greyhound Bus Depot.  This is a small museum detailing the Freedom Rides with a special focus on the violence that occurred when the bus came to this station in Montgomery.  The fee is $5.

On our own we also tracked down the Mt. Zion AME Church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, and Holt Avenue Baptist Church, where he gave his first speech to 5000 people that same night.  Neither building houses a functioning church today.  We also found the First Baptist Church where Ralph Abernathy was pastor.

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Selma to Montgomery:  We followed the 1965 Voting Rights March of 54 miles in reverse.  The march took 5 days with 4 overnights.  There are signs along highway 80 that mark each of the campsites.  About half way between Selma and Montgomery we discovered a wonderful museum that tells the story of the 3 marches.  It is called the Lowndes Interpretive Center (at what once was Tent City) and is maintained by the National Park Service and is free of charge.  On the east side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, as you enter Selma, is the National Voting Rights Museum.  In Selma itself you can find the First Baptist Church, which hosted SNCC, and the Brown Chapel AME Church, which hosted the SCLC and from which the marches started.

Little Rock, Arkansas:  Little Rock Central High School is still a functioning high school, and can only be visited by groups, and with an appointment.  It is an amazingly large and beautiful school, voted the most beautiful high school in the nation.  Across the street the National Park Service has a fine museum, free of charge, which documents the 1957 and beyond struggle to desegregate the school.  You can also drive to the Daisy Bates Home, where Daisy often housed the Little Rock Nine.  The house is now unoccupied and there are plans to turn it into a museum.

Nashville, Tennessee:   In the downtown public library there is a Civil Rights room that documents the extensive sit-ins that took place in 1960.  In that room you can find a great map which I took downtown where I was able to find several of the places where the sit-ins first took place, such as Walgreens, and the buildings that once housed S.H Kress & Co., McLellan, and F.W. Woolworth.

Memphis, Tennessee:  The National Civil Rights Museum (at the Lorraine Hotel) is the finest museum we saw, covering the entire period from slavery through the Civil Rights Movement.  You can see both the Lorraine Hotel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, and the boarding house where James Earl Ray stayed.  The fee for the museum is $11.  We also drove to see the Mason Temple where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his last speech the night before he was assassinated. [See Blog of 8/17 for pictures]

In upcoming blogs I will continue to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement from 1957 forward, focusing on many of the sites mentioned above.