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Alabama is the centerpiece of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail, with more than 40 civil rights sites, far more than any other state along the trail. When 11 U.S. Civil Rights Trail sites were nominated to the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage List in 2024, five of them were in Alabama.
But Alabama’s impact on the civil rights goes beyond numbers. The scenes of attacks by police on peaceful protesters in Selma and Birmingham — broadcast on the TV news and prominent on front pages — triggered needed federal laws to ensure voting rights and end segregation.
On tours of Alabama cities, large and small, groups will not only visit important sites but they’ll also meet today’s Black Alabamians. Hearing from them, and from others who continue to work to protect civil rights and freedoms, can be an experience that opens eyes, hearts and minds.
Major Players
Throughout Alabama, museums, bridges, churches and other sites chronicle key episodes of America’s Civil Rights movement. But no Civil Rights-themed itinerary in the state is complete without stops in the state’s major players of the movement — Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma.
Montgomery
Start your tour in the state capital, the civil rights movement’s birthplace.
Considered the movement’s birthplace, Montgomery has more U.S. Civil Rights Trail sites than any other city in Alabama.
The movement began in the 1955, when activist Rosa Parks refusal to give her seat on a bus to a white man helped lead to Montgomery Bus Boycott. Montgomery’s black churches played a big role in the peaceful movement to end segregation. The boycott was born at Holt Street Baptist Church, where the first big organizational meeting was held. It is now a museum, open for tours. Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King led the congregation from 1955 to 1960, is also open for tours, or groups can attend its Sunday services. A few blocks away, the white frame home where the King family lived is now the Dexter Parsonage Museum, furnished with many pieces they used. The interpretive center next door displays never-published photographs of King and accounts of the parsonage bombing.
Troy University’s Rosa Parks Museum preserves Parks’ legacy. Scheduled tours can examine her arrest records, court documents and an original 1950s Montgomery public bus.
Three sites created by the Equal Justice Initiative examine slavery and its horrors and remind us that injustice did not end for African Americans when slavery was outlawed. The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration covers slavery and the injustices meted on African Americans since. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is a chilling reminder that more than 4,400 Black people were murdered by lynching between 1877 and 1950. Each of the 800 six-foot steel monuments that hang there represent a county where lynchings were held. Each is inscribed with names of those murdered in that county.
Leg Stretcher: Through art and artifacts, the newest Legacy site, the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, illuminates the plight of enslaved people through sculptures, 170-year-old slave dwellings and replicas like that of a slave pen that are positioned along its paths. The park’s massive Monument to Freedom is engraved with the names of 100,000 formerly enslaved people listed in the 1870 census. Downtown, touch the names of those who died in the struggle for civil rights at a monument designed by Maya Lin at the Civil Rights Memorial Center then visit the exhibits and see presentations in its theater inside.
Fuel Stop: Near the state capitol, Chris’ Famous Hotdogs welcomes all, through one door, as did even when segregation meant separate doors for blacks and whites. Since 1917, Chris’s welcoming ways and tasty hotdogs have drawn a diverse crowd, among them Martin Luther King Jr. and Elvis Presley. Montgomery’s black-owned eateries also earn high praise. At Brin’s Wings, chicken wings nestle up to fried green tomatoes and other Southern sides. A local attorney has created a convivial space for coffee, cocktails and local food trucks at Baristas and Barristers.
To plan a trip to Montgomery, contact:
Ann Clemons
Triple E Group Services
334-328-9181
Jake Williams
Montgomery Tours
334-450-5183
Michelle Browder
More Than Tours
334-296-3024
334-462-3248
The Road to Rights
Highway 80, between Selma and the state capital, is designated as the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail. It was the path protestors took from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, walking 54 miles in four days to the capitol steps in Montgomery. At the road’s mid-point, learn more about their trek and the story of the Selma marches and the voting rights movement through exhibits and the film “Never Lose Sight of Freedom,” at the Lowndes Interpretive Center, operated by the National Park Service.
Selma
Television brought Selma into America’s living rooms in March 1965.
The bravery and sacrifice of those peaceful protestors who were violently beaten by state police and local whites on a bridge named for a Klan member are not forgotten. Today, groups can walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and learn more about the three marches in Selma that March, each larger than the last, and how those marches, especially the first, Bloody Sunday, were impetus for passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Selma and Dallas County Chamber of Commerce can help groups connect with locals who were among the young marchers in 1965.
Each end of the bridge offers the chance to learn more about Selma’s campaign to end segregation and ensure equality through voting rights for African Americans. At the moment, the Selma Interpretive Center downtown is closed for renovation, but it is set to reopen in fall 2026. At the bridge’s other end, the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute was founded by community members, who gathered marchers’ personal recollections, photographs and personal items and created a collection that has educated and informed since the early 1990s. Recent financial struggles have led to a more limited schedule, so call ahead for hours.
As was common throughout the South, Black churches in Selma were major players in the civil rights movement. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s first large meeting in Selma was held at Tabernacle Baptist. At Selma’s Brown Chapel AME Church, the SCLC talked strategy, foot soldiers gathered to march and those beaten on Bloody Sunday found shelter. Both churches have active congregations.
Leg Stretcher: Monuments at the Selma Voting Rights Monument and Park honor leaders of the Voting Rights movement; wooded trails lead to river views.
Other Stops: Guides can be arranged for tours of Selma’s Old Town Historic District, the state’s large
Fuel Stops: At the base of the Pettus bridge, stop for a quick snack at The Coffee Shoppe and meet owner Jackie Smith, an active community member who grew up in a segregated Selma. Box lunches, ordered in advance, are a possibility. For barbecue with flavorful past, there’s Lannie’s Bar-B-Que Spot, open since 1944. A new larger location joins the original. Pork pulls people in, but the secret sauce is the key. The late Georgia congressman John Lewis, badly beaten when he marched on Bloody Sunday, dined at Lannie’s.
To plan a trip to Selma, contact:
Joanne Bland
Journeys for the Soul
334-413-1035
Pivotal Moments
The Birmingham campaign, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement, involved protests in 1963 aimed at ending segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Peaceful protests including sit-ins, marches and boycotts gained national attention and were some of the key events that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Birmingham
Alabama’s biggest city has had a large impact on civil rights.
The story of what happened there, especially the tumult of 1963, is told in a four-block area downtown designated in 2017 as the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument. Anchoring the monument is 16th Street Baptist Church, where a Ku Klux Klan bombing killed four young girls as they prepared for Sunday worship. The church served as gathering place for peaceful demonstrations, and today, remains an active congregation, dedicated to sharing Birmingham’s turbulent past as it works toward a better future for all. Tours are offered.
Many marches led to Kelly Ingram Park, across from the church. In 1963, police turned firehouses, clubs and vicious dogs on children participating in a peaceful march aimed at ending segregation. The violent scenes from Birmingham—the bombing of a church and murder of children and the beating and battering of youthful marchers—helped bring about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Today, sculptures in the park tell the story of all that happened in and around it during those tumultuous days; an audio tour available at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute leads visitors through the park.
At the Institute, also part of the national monument, among the exhibits are displays that show segregated restrooms, restaurants and public transportation. And, in recent years, the A.G. Gaston Motel, across from the park, has also become part of the monument. At the hotel, Civil Rights organizers planned their sit-ins, boycotts and nonviolent marches. The 1950s motel, which served black travelers, is being restored but groups are welcomed can see its exterior.
Other Stops: Check out the dazzling Alabama Theatre, for everything from vintage films to lively concerts.
Explore a different aspect of life in segregated America at the Negro Southern League Museum, home to the country’s largest collection of items connected to the original Negro League. One artifact? A uniform worn by Satchel Paige.
Fuel Stops: Birmingham is revered for its restaurants, and many are run by black entrepreneurs. Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ, founded in South Carolina, has multiple Birmingham locations. For traditional Southern fare, settle in at Yo’ Mamas or Brown’s Southern Bistro.
To plan a trip to Birmingham, contact:
Dr. Martha Bouyer
Out Of The Box Services
205-919-1761
Barry McNealy
Barry McNealy Tour Services
205-789-7631
Be Enlightened by Experience Givers
Groups can connect with Experience Givers, local guides who share the Civil Rights story and often add their own perspective.
These African Americans come from different backgrounds. Barry McNealy is a high school history teacher and coordinator of youth at the Birmingham Civil Rights Monument. JoAnne Bland and Jake Williams were Civil Rights Movement foot soldiers and share what they witnessed. Ann Clemons can plan special programs, including local actors who portray Civil Rights leaders like Rosa Parks. Tour planners can book Experience Givers by contacting them directly. The Alabama Civil Rights Trail, which created the Experience Givers program, supplied this contact information.
Small and Mighty
These Alabama towns are essential to the Civil Rights story.
Anniston
The Freedom Riders National Monument, operated by the National Park Service, preserves the Anniston Greyhound Bus Depot, where a bus carrying Freedom Riders on their way from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans to protest segregated interstate transportation was attacked by Klan members and other white citizens. A second site, six miles from town, marks the place where another angry mob attacked and firebombed the bus after it broke down. Passengers managed to escape, though many were injured. Photos of the attack published across the country drove home the danger and violence the movement’s foot soldiers faced as they worked to end segregation and ensure equality for all.
Mobile
A year after the Africatown Heritage House opened in 2023, it was named as one of the country’s 10 best new museums by readers of USA Today. Its debut exhibition, Clotilda, is the story of 110 enslaved Africans who arrived in Mobile in 1860 on the last known slave ship. They later established an independent community that preserved its African roots. Today, Africatown is an ongoing preservation project; among other sites to see is Africatown Cemetery, where former enslaved people and Buffalo Soldiers are buried.
Monroeville
Author Harper Lee nearly her whole life in Monroeville, and it became the fictional Macomb in her much loved and lauded novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Today, groups can visit the courtroom that inspired the one in her novel, and if they are lucky, applaud a local cast in their annual staging of To Kill a Mockingbird. Performances are on weekends from mid-April to mid-May. A small venue means tickets are limited, but early group sales are offered. Throughout the year, groups can visit the courthouse, now the Old Courthouse Museum, with permanent exhibits about Lee and her friend, writer Truman Capote, who spent his summers in Monroeville as a child.
Leg Stretcher: After the museum, take a self-guided walking tour of downtown Monroeville. A stop for a milkshake at Mel’s Dairy Dream is a must. The drive-in is built where Lee’s original home stood.
Scottsboro
The Scottsboro Boys Museum tells the story of nine young African American boys, falsely accused of raping two white women, and the repeated injustices they faced in court. Their cases eventually led to Supreme Court rulings that guaranteed jury diversification and adequate representation for defendants. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird is said to be loosely based on the case.
Tuscaloosa
Gov. George Wallace’s 1964 Stand in the Schoolhouse Door at the University of Alabama was a historic moment here, but there is much more to learn in this college town about Tuscaloosa’s role in civil rights. The self-guided Tuscaloosa Civil Rights History Trailis a good place to start. Its 18 stops include sites of a public lynching and Bloody Tuesday, where peaceful marchers were beaten as they protested the segregation of a new courthouse. The tour spotlights places where civil rights leaders gathered to talk, like a black-owned barbershop, and businesses that were sites of sit-ins, like department store lunch counters.
Tuskegee
As the home of Tuskegee University, a historically Black college founded by Booker T. Washington, this proud town has long championed the rights and the contributions of African Americans. The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site remembers the elite group of African American pilots who served in World War II in exhibits that are housed in a restored hangar at the airfield where they trained. The Tuskegee Airmen were also known for their successful efforts to integrate white officers’ clubs. Their tactics would later be studied by leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. The Tuskegee History Center examines the inhumane treatment of African American men whose syphilis was untreated as they became, without consent, subjects of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The center also looks at Tuskegee in a broader sense, describing how the convergence of three cultures has helped lead to its triumphs in medicine, education and civil rights.
