The U.S. Civil Rights Trail tells a story that’s still unfolding. The scope of the movement and the events that preceded it span centuries and hundreds of thousands of individual lives.
New landmarks, monuments and museums are still being erected; historic figures and their achievements are still being recognized and chronicled today. That is why new sites are still being added to this day.
Visitors can add these new trail sites to their itineraries as they traverse the Southeast.
Holt Street Memorial Baptist Church
Montgomery, Alabama
The story of Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 is well-known. Her courageous actions resulted in the Montgomery bus boycott, one of the first organized protests of the Civil Rights Movement, and the desegregation of public buses. It also made a national statement and set history in motion. But the boycott may not have happened if not for the Holt Street Memorial Baptist Church, where leaders gathered to organize. Founded in 1909, the church building was completed in 1913 and was an important place of worship and fellowship for Montgomery’s Black community.
On the 69th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott, Holt Street Memorial Baptist Church held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and celebrations for the opening of a new museum within. The museum contains exhibits and artifacts commemorating the boycott, its impact and the church’s part in it. Museum tours are available for visitors looking to learn more about the 1955 boycott and Montgomery’s role in the Civil Rights Movement.
St. Augustine Beach Hotel
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine, Florida, is one of the oldest cities in the country. On its 400th anniversary in 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference staged protests against segregated beaches and pools with a swim-in at the Monson Motor Lodge pool. Later, they organized wade-ins at St. Augustine Beach. King and others were assaulted and arrested as a result, and photos were published of the violent altercations that occurred. The publicization of these events is said to have spurred the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
The St. Augustine Beach hotel and beachfront are recognizable landmarks from the images and serve as a reminder for the violence that protesters endured to affect lasting change. The property is no longer a hotel but is now maintained and cared for by the St. Johns Cultural Council, which uses it as a center for arts, culture and community gathering. Visitors will find a plaque commemorating the wade-ins and the violence they were met with.
Madam C.J. Walker Museum WERD Studio Complex
Atlanta
In Atlanta’s historic Sweet Auburn neighborhood, not far from other Civil Rights Trail sites like the Birth Home of Martin Luther King Jr., travelers will find two captivating stories of Black leadership and innovation within the same unassuming brick building.
Born 1867 in Delta, Louisiana as Sarah Breedlove, the entrepreneur better known as Madam C.J. Walker built a business empire selling haircare and cosmetics for Black women. Her business model employed consistent training and a franchise of beauty shops that made her an easily recognizable brand among Black women. Sweet Auburn, a building that once housed a Madam C.J. Walker Beauty Shoppe, is now home to the Madam C.J. Walker Boutique Museum, honoring Walker’s legacy as the first self-made American millionairess. Though Walker herself did not live in Atlanta, the museum has preserved artifacts and even products from the shop’s heyday. Its exhibits pay homage to Walker and her entrepreneurial spirit.
Upstairs, even more history awaits travelers in what was once the studio for WERD, the first Black-owned-and-operated radio station in the country. Founded in 1949, the radio station was created by the first Black CPA in the U.S., Jesse Blayton. In the museum today, visitors will find records played on the station and one of the largest collections of vinyl in the city.
International African American Museum
Charleston, South Carolina
During the height of the slave trade, an estimated 150,000 enslaved people were trafficked into Gadsden’s Wharf in downtown Charleston, South Carolina — an estimated 40% of the total enslaved persons entering the country. Today, on that wharf, the International African American Museum rests on pillars to show respect for the tragedy that happened on this land. The $120 million museum opened in June of 2023 and contains nine galleries of exhibits designed to tell the story of the Civil Rights Movement and all the events that led to it, from slavery to the Civil War to Jim Crow segregation.
The museum boasts a permanent collection that features more than 150 objects and 30 works of art dedicated to the history of Black Americans. The collection includes digital assets such as films and photographs. It takes visitors on a chronological journey, from their forced removal from Africa to being trafficked across the Atlantic to becoming enslaved and building America’s infrastructure. Upon their freedom, many continued as laborers and also developed a rich cultural heritage in music, art and literature and added many other modern-day advancements. It also features exhibits on Gullah-Geechee culture and South Carolina’s civil rights history. The property is also home to the African Ancestors Memorial Garden, which visitors can walk through to find additional exhibits, monuments and beautiful landscaping. African American visitors interested in researching their family history can do so at the Center for Family History.
Withers Collection Museum and Gallery
Memphis, Tennessee
Beale Street in Memphis is already a treasure trove of Black history, from music to the Civil Rights Movement. In 2024, another Beale Street gem was added to the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. The Withers Collection Museum and Gallery preserves and displays the works of Ernest Withers Sr., an acclaimed photojournalist whose important work documented both the daily lives of African Americans and the Civil Rights Movement in the South.
The 7,000-square-foot museum is located at Withers’ last working studio. Withers was a prolific photographer, and the museum’s collection, both physical and digital, is thought to contain about 1.8 million images. These images include shots of everyday life in Memphis, key events of the Civil Rights Movement, and even iconic soul and blues musicians like Elvis Presley, BB King and Aretha Franklin. Due to the personal nature of his photography and the broad range of subject matter, Withers can be considered not only a photographer but also an activist in the Civil Rights Movement. He took some of the most iconic photos of the movement, including images of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike of 1968, taken just one week before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. His legacy as both a creative and a civil rights leader can be explored through his works.
In addition to being a museum, the gallery is also a space for the Memphis community to gather.
museum.thewitherscollection.com
Fredericksburg Civil Rights Trail
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Launched in 2023, the Fredericksburg Civil Rights Trail was officially added to the U.S. Civil Rights Trail in early 2024. The trail, a collaboration between the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and the University of Mary Washington’s James Farmer Multicultural Center, consists of two parts with 21 stops total that showcase the city’s civil rights history.
Part one of the trail kicks off at the city’s visitor center, where travelers will receive a map of the trail. It takes them on a 2.6-mile walk through the city’s historic downtown. Part two begins on the University of Mary Washington’s campus, takes visitors through a half-mile walk on campus and then includes nearly two miles of driving.
The trail examines the role Fredericksburg played during the Civil War. As a midpoint between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia, the capitals of the Union and Confederacy, respectively, the city endured chaos, shifting boundaries and fighting between the two sides. The trail also educates travelers about the Freedom Riders, who stopped in Fredericksburg; sit-in movements; Shiloh Baptist Church’s role in the movement; and other monuments, murals and stops.
Mary McLeod Bethune Council House
Washington, D.C.
Many Civil Rights Trail sites are dedicated to honoring the achievements and activism from the people who played a key role in pursuing racial equality. It’s hard to number the achievements and accomplishments of Mary McLeod Bethune. Bethune was born in 1875 in Reconstructionist-era South Carolina, the daughter of formerly enslaved persons. In her lifetime, she became a champion of gender and racial equality. She founded a boarding school for young Black women, which later evolved into Bethune-Cookman College. She also became an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as a vice president of the NAACP.
Travelers can learn about her extensive list of achievements at the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House in Washington, D.C. The townhome is a National Historic Site and was the national headquarters of the National Council of Negro Women, where Bethune and others advocated for the political and social advancement of Black women. The historic site offers free tours of the home. Exhibits discuss her impact on the Civil Rights Movement, her legacy as an educator and her influence on the women she mentored.
