Guided and Individual Civil Rights Tours
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute plays host to tours regularly.
While, it's easy to tour civil rights sites on your own, there are reasons to take a guided trip. It lets someone else do the driving, and often provides extraordinary expert guides to help put the history and sites into perspective.
Unfortunately, there isn't a tour company offering regular trips to the public. But there are community groups and colleges offering trips to significant sites, usually on multi-day bus tours.
The following are just a sample. CivilRightsTravel.com has no connection to any of these tours:
- Two 2012 tours offer a rare chance to travel to a Civil Rights site with a person who made history there.
Former NAACP president Julian Bond will lead a tour through Alabama and Mississippi.Civil Rights pioneer Julian Bond will lead a tour of Atlanta, Birmingham, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Miss., and Memphis, Tenn., from March 10 to 16, 2012.
The University of Virginia-sponsored Civil Rights South Seminar, starts in Atlanta. It doesn't come cheap though. Cost starts at $2,875, double occupancy. Contact: 202/244-1448. Information here.
A tour with Civil Rights pioneer Bernard Lafayette will revisit sites where he made history.In addition, an Atlanta-based tour offers a rare chance to travel with legend Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr., visiting the Mississippi sites where he made history: Philadelphia, Jackson, Greenwood (featured in the recent film The Help), and nearby Money, site of the Emmett Till lynching. It runs Jan. 4 to 7, 2012, and costs $480 per person, double occupancy.
Participants are picked up from the Atlanta airport. Contact Dr. Charles Collyer, 401/258-9834 or calphin1@bellsouth.net. Information here.
- The Harford Community College in Bel Air, Md., which is northeast of Baltimore, has an extensive 10-day bus trip planned for March 16 to 25, 2012. The tour visits sites in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee, including Memphis and Nashville, which usually isn't on itineraries.
Tour highlights include admission to more than 15 museums and civil rights sites. There's also a Rosa Parks performance and presentations by several guest lecturers, including two original Freedom Riders. There's even a blues cruise on a historic paddle-wheel boat. Cost is $1,850 per person/double occupancy. Contact: 443/412-2175; lsturgill@harford.edu. Information here.
- The Chicago-based Freedom Lifted tour company offers separate bus tours of Mississippi-Memphis and Alabama-Atlanta.
It also offers customized group and individual tours.
The next Mississippi tour runs March 22 to 25, 2012. Participants meet at the Memphis airport and visit sites in the Mississippi Delta, Jackson and Memphis. Cost: $675, with senior and student discounts available.
The next Alabama tour runs May 17 to 19, 2012. Participants meet at the Atlanta airport and visit Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma and Atlanta. Cost: $575, with senior and student discounts available.
For details on either tour, contact 773/ 359-4921. Information here.
- Now in its 11th year, the Returning to the Roots of the Civil Rights bus tour lasts nine days, June 9-17. It visits several sites beyond the familiar Deep South itinerary, taking in Greensboro, N.C.; Albany, Ga.; Atlanta; and Nashville.
The tour, sponsored by PNC Bank and Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Penn., leaves from the Pittsburgh area. The $975 cost includes transportation, hotels, reading materials, on-bus documentaries and museum entrance fees, but not meals. ($1,250 for single room). Information: Contact communications professor Dr. Todd Allen, 724/622-0858 or 724/843-1677; taallen@geneva.edu or visit this Facebook page.
- One of the most impressive tours is designed for teachers and students -- but occasionally individual travelers can join up too.
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. Most impressive are the speakers the organizers arrange to meet each tour group, including actual participants in the historic events like Freedom Rider U.S. Congressman John Lewis and Elizabeth Eckford and Minnijean Brown Trickey of the Little Rock Nine.
It makes for a moving you-are-there experience that literally changes people's lives. Tours run January through May, although if you have a group, they can be arranged for anytime.
Contact info: sojournproject@gmail.com, 650/952-1510.
- You'll learn about the journey runaway slaves undertook with a visit to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, before motoring down to the South on this tour offered by the Ohio Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission and the City of Columbus, Ohio's Community Relations Commission.
The tour then visits Atlanta; Tuskegee, Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham, Ala., and Memphis, Tenn., before motoring back to Columbus, Ohio.
In 2012, the dates are April 10-14, and starts at $285, sharing a room with four people. Those staying two to a room pay $340 apiece. For information, contact (614) 645-1903 or click here
- The Montgomery County, Md., Office of Civil Rights offers a bus trip leaving from the Washington, D.C. area, and visiting Atlanta; Tuskegee, Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham, Ala., and Memphis, Tenn., before motoring back to Maryland.
Riders spend one night on the bus while they travel from Memphis back to Montgomery. In 2012, the dates are April 4-7, and while rates have not yet been set, last year they started at $430, sharing a room with four people. Those staying two to a room paid $475 apiece. For information, contact (240) 777-8450 or click here.
- The Civil Rights Historic Heritage Tour, sponsored by the Martin Luther King Resource Center of Raleigh, N.C. , is for the young or hardy, as it starts and ends with overnight bus rides.
It's a Freedom Ride of sorts with three buses, and a total of 165 passengers. The tour leaves from Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte, and includes three nights in hotels. You'll visit the most important Civil Rights sites in the South: Atlanta; Tuskegee, Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham, Ala., and Memphis, Tenn. All in all, the tour visits 14 historic civil rights sites.
In 2012, the tour runs April 3 - 6, and starts at $395, sharing a room with three other people. (It's $445 per couple staying two to a room). For info, contact (919) 834-6264, email brucelig@king-raleigh.org or click here.
- The Civil War will share billing with Civil Rights on an five-day tour of Mississippi, Alabama and Atlanta sponsored by the Indiana Historical Society. The trip, which starts with a flight from Indianapolis, runs April 16 to 20, 2012. (Participants can depart from other cities and meet the group in Gulfport, Miss.) Prices start at $1,949, double occupancy.
Contact: 317/913-0387. Information here.