Civil Rights tour

     In December of 2020 we did a trip to the south and wanted to incorporate some cities that were important in the civil rights movement.  I wish we would have had more time to explore these cities more and see more things.  This was also in the middle of the Covid pandemic so most of our focus was to see outside locations. Our kids were 11,10, and 6 at the time. 

    Our first stop was Montgomery, Alabama. I am a huge fan of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) so most of this day trip was spent exploring the impact of their work.  We started on Commerce Street.  The founder of EJI, Bryan Stevenson's office building is on Commerce Street.  So it was so cool to see his building.  Commerce Street use to connect the ships and railroads that brought slaves to the area to the warehouses where they stored the slaves until auction.  It was eerie to walk on Commerce Street.

     Next we went to the Legacy Museum.  It focused on the the connection of enslaved people to mass incarceration. It was an intense museum and you could not take pictures inside it. Lastly, we went to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.  It is a memorial to the over 4,000 Americans that were lynched in our country.  It is all outside and a very touching experience.  There are many more amazing civil rights activities we would have loved to have experienced here but we were short on time.  I really liked Montgomery as a city it was small and cute.  They had a lot of nice restaurants and places to shop.  It was a lovely city I wish we had more time to explore. Once we were outside the city we stopped at a cotton field to see raw cotton for the first time.  It was a neat experience to see it up close and feel it in the field. 

Bryan Stevenson's office building 

Commerce Street

The outside of the Legacy Museum

National Memorial for Peace and Justice

National Memorial for Peace and Justice

National Memorial for Peace and Justice

My son seeing raw cotton for the first time

Selma - In 1965 congress passed the voting rights act because before that date many states still didn't allow their black residents the right to vote.  This act was not passed easily.  In March of 1965 Martin Luther King Jr. decided that he would organize a march from Selma to Montgomery to help encourage congress to pass this law.  There were many in the south that did not want to see this equality come to be.   The march for voting rights came to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma and were beaten by the locals and the local police force.  This became known as Bloody Sunday and was televised across the world.  This is an intense place to visit.  There is a small memorial park at the base of the bridge and there is a National Park building on the other end of the bridge.  There is a pedestrian walk way so you can walk in the same place that the civil rights giants of the past walked on.  There is even a civil rights trail from the church where they started to the bridge.  Selma is the birthplace of American equality in voting and defiantly worth a visit.   

Historical Marker from the civil rights park

The famous Edmund Pettus Bridge

Birmingham- 

This is a fantastic city and I wish we would have had way more time to fully enjoy it.  Birmingham and Kelly Ingram Park was an important organizational focal point in the civil rights movement.  And for every advancement that the civil rights movement had they received hard push back from those who did not want black communities to have equality.