A Civil Rights Tour of the South

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.– Martin Luther King Jr.

We start our tour in Atlanta, Georgia, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was born and where much of his work was done. In the Sweet Auburn neighborhood, you will find the National Park Service’s Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Center, which has exhibits on his life and the civil rights movement. The center houses the wagon that carried his coffin and was pulled by donkeys through the streets of Atlanta during his funeral.

The NPS also runs tours of the adjacent Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King and his father both preached, and is still a functioning church. You can take tours through the sanctuary, which looks very much as it did when the Kings were members.

Down Auburn Avenue lies Dr. King’s birth home, which guests can also tour, but you must reserve a spot at the King Center. Tickets are free. The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change holds the crypts of both King and his wife Coretta Scott King (see above). The center has a few outdated exhibits upstairs, with King’s Grammy for Best Spoken Word Performance (who knew?) and artifacts from Gandhi and Rosa Parks. The nearby Curbside Market is also worth exploring.

Eight hours away in Memphis, Tennessee, you can see where Martin Luther King Jr.’s life was tragically cut short by assassin James Earl Ray‘s bullet. King’s room at the Lorraine Motel has a wreath hanging on the door and the hotel has now been transformed into the National Civil Rights Museum.

Four hours south takes us to the most notable sites of the Civil Rights Movement. Birmingham, Alabama was home to the tragic bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, which killed three four young girls, as well as boycotts against separate eating facilities and the writing of King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.” The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute was created to document the city’s importance in the movement. It also hosts special events and exhibitions, like the current photography exhibit, “Living in Limbo: Lesbian Families in the Deep South.”

Nearby Montgomery, an hour and a half further, was the starting point of the bus boycotts when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the city bus. It is also home to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Civil Rights Memorial, which is dedicated to those who died in the struggle for equal rights for all. It was created by Maya Lin, who also designed the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC.

Also Worth Seeing

See also: Alabama Civil Rights Trail.