Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler's Guide to the People, Places, and Events that Made the Movement

by Deborah D. Douglas

Overview

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail offers a vivid glimpse into the story of Black America's fight for freedom and equality. From eye-opening landmarks to celebrations of triumph over adversity, experience a tangible piece of history with Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail.

• Flexible Itineraries: Travel the entire trail through the South, or take a weekend getaway to Charleston, Birmingham, Jackson, Memphis, Washington DC, and more places significant to the Civil Rights Movement
• Historic Civil Rights Sites: Learn about Dr. King's legacy at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, be transformed at the small but mighty Emmett Till Intrepid Center, and stand tall with Little Rock Nine at their memorial in Arkansas
• The Culture of the Movement: Get to know the voices, stories, music, and flavors that shape and celebrate Black America both then and now. Take a seat at a lunch counter where sit-ins took place or dig in to heaping plates of soul food and barbecue. Spend the day at museums that connect our present to the past or spend the night in the birthplace of the blues
• Expert Insight: Award-winning journalist Deborah Douglas offers her valuable perspective and knowledge, including suggestions for engaging with local communities by supporting Black-owned businesses and seeking out activist groups
• Travel Tools: Find driving directions for exploring the sites on a road trip, tips on where to stay, and full-color photos and maps throughout
• Detailed coverage of: Charleston, Atlanta, Selma to Montgomery, Birmingham, Jackson, the Mississippi Delta, Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, Raleigh, Durham, Virginia, and Washington DC
• Foreword by Bree Newsome Bass: activist, filmmaker, and artist 

Journey through history, understand struggles past and present, and get inspired to create a better future with Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail.
 

About Moon Travel Guides: Moon was founded in 1973 to empower independent, active, and conscious travel. We prioritize local businesses, outdoor recreation, and traveling strategically and sustainably. Moon Travel Guides are written by local, expert authors with great stories to tell—and they can't wait to share their favorite places with you.

For more inspiration, follow @moonguides on social media.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781640499157
Publisher:	Avalon Publishing
Publication date:	01/12/2021
Series:	Travel Guide
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	410,348
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Deborah Douglas is an award-winning journalist, cultural critic, and thought leader specializing in the African American lived experience.

Deborah lives in Chicago, where she was born, but is a self-described product of the Great Migration: She started school in post-uprising Detroit and came of age in metro Memphis. After graduating from Northwestern University, she traveled the country as a reporter, landing in Jackson, Mississippi. She's taught best practices to journalists in Karachi, Pakistan, taught in South Africa twice, studied HIV and malaria prevention in Tanzania, and traveled to Kenya, Tunisia, and Senegal, and throughout Europe. She is currently the Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Professor at DePauw University, creating courses to show student-journalists how to center marginalized voices in their work.

She served as the managing editor of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a reporting project examining the economic realities of Memphis, Tennessee, 50+ years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated there. Previously, she was the No. 2 at the Chicago Sun-Times editorial page and a columnist. She served as an adjunct lecturer at Medill where she designed a Civil Rights Act of 1964 graduate capstone, and has contributed to VICE, Time, American Prospect, The Root, The Grio and The (NAACP) Crisis magazine. She is a senior leader at The OpEd Project, an initiative that amplifies underrepresented expert voices. In her career, she's had the honor of speaking with civil rights icons, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. James Lawson, Diane Nash, Bernard Lafayette, Bree Newsome, Rev. Bernice King, and Rev. Martin King III. Her work has been cited by the New York Times, and she's won numerous awards for her writing for Oprah magazine and other outlets.

Table of Contents

Planning and Inspiration

Foreword vii

Preface x

Experience the U.S. Civii Rights Trail 1

10 Unforgettable Experiences Along the U.S. Civil Rights Trail 2

Planning Your Trip 10

Following the Freedom Riders 15

Civil Rights Road Trips 19

Black-Owned Businesses 20

Reasons to Celebrate 23

Destinations

Charleston 27

• Main port of entry for enslaved Africans.

Three Days in Charleston 33

Sights 35

• Voices of the Movement: Activist Bree Newsome Bass 39

Tours and Local Guides 42

Shopping 45

Food 49

Nightlife 54

Atlanta 59

• Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthplace (1929) and the site of his homegoing (1968).

Two Days in Atlanta 66

Sights 67

• Voices of the Movement: Congressman John Lewis 74

Tours and Local Guides 82

Shopping 84

Festivals and Events 85

Food 87

Nightlife 91

Selma 97

• Site of a pivotal voting rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge (1965).

Two Days in Selma 104

Sights 107

Tours and Local Guides 114

• Voices of the Movement: Child Foot Soldier JoAnne Bland 115

Festivals and Events 116

Food 117

Selma to Montgomery 120

Montgomery 125

• Site of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956).

Two Days in Montgomery 133

Sights 134

• Voices of the Movement: Freedom Rider Bernard Lafayette 140

Tours and Local Guides 150

Shopping 151

Festivals and Events 153

Food 153

Birmingham 159

• Location of the Birmingham Campaign (1963), a hard-fought battle against segregation.

Two Days in Birmingham 166

Sights 168

• Voices of the Movement: Rev. Calvin Woods 173

Tours and Local Guides 179

Shopping 179

Festivals and Events 181

• Voices of the Movement: Children's Crusade Participant Paulette Roby 182

Food 184

Nightlife 186

Jackson, Mississippi 189

• Home of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was murdered here (1963); destination of James Meredith's March Against Fear (1966).

Two Days in Jackson 196

Sights 197

• Voices of the Movement: March Against Fear Leader James Meredith 200

Tours and Local Guides 206

Shopping 207

Festivals and Events 208

Food 209

Nightlife 213

Canton, Mississippi 216

The Delta 219

• Where Black teen Emmett Till's brutal murder (1955) helped ignite the modern civil rights movement.

Two Days in the Delta 225

Sights 226

Shopping 234

Festivals and Events 237

Food 238

Nightlife 239

• Voices of the Movement: Incarcerated Freedom Riders, Mississippi State Penitentiary 244

Little Rock 247

• Where nine students famously desegregated an all-White high school (1957).

Two Days in Little Rock 253

Sights 254

• Voices of the Movement: Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock Nine 256

• Voices of the Movement: Little Rock Central Student Sybil Jordan Hampton 258

Tours and Local Guides 270

Shopping 270

Festivals and Events 271

Food 271

Nightlife 274

Memphis 279

• Site of a pivotal labor strike (1968); where King was assassinated on the balcony of his motel (1968).

Three Days in Memphis 285

Sights 286

Tours and Local Guides 299

Shopping 300

• Voices of the Movement: First-Grade Student Dwania Kyles 304

Festivals and Events 305

Food 306

Nightlife 310

Nashville 315

• Hotbed of student activism, especially lunch-counter sit-ins (1960).

Two Days in Nashville 321

Sights 324

Tours and Local Guides 333

Shopping 334

Festivals and Events 336

Food 337

• Voices of the Movement: Rev. James Morris Lawson 338

• Voices of the Movement: Nashville Student Leader Diane Nash 341

Nightlife 343

Greensboro, Raleigh, and Durham 347

• Early sit-in site (Greensboro; 1960); where the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded (Durham; 1960).

Two Days in Greensboro, Raleigh, and Durham 353

Greensboro 355

Durham 362

Raleigh 374

Richmond and Farmville 381

• Site of an influential high-school walk-out staged by 16-year-old Barbara Johns (Farmville; 1951); where sit-in demonstrators the Richmond 34 were arrested (Richmond; 1960).

Two Days in Richmond and Farmville 387

Farmville 388

Richmond 394

Washington DC 405

• Home of the Supreme Court; site of the 1963 March on Washington.

Three Days in Washington DC 413

Sights 414

Tours and Local Guides 441

Shopping 442

Festivals and Events 447

• Voices of the Movement: Rev. Jesse L. Jackson 448

Food 452

Nightlife 457

Background and Resources

The Road Ahead 463

Get Involved 465

Buy Black 467

Get Educated 469

History 476

Before the Movement 476

The Civil Rights Movement 478

After the Movement: 1968-Today 488

Essentials 492

Transportation 492

Tours 494

Travel Tips 497

Customs and Etiquette 500

Health and Safety 501

Notes 502

Index 505

List of Maps 520

Editorial Reviews

"With this superb book—at once a reference work and a travel guide—about locations pivotal to the U.S. civil rights movement, Douglas raises the bar for other historically oriented travel books...Laden with information, this affecting guide provides a nuanced and powerful representation of Black Americans’ fight for freedom and equality. For every library."—Library Journal

“This guidebook provides a severely under-covered travel adventure, explained clearly, with impressive research breadth and depth. Journalist Deborah D. Douglas mixes history with contemporary knowledge to inspire civil rights-related travel as a concept and then illuminates how that concept plays out in 13 separate geographic locales.”—Society of American Travel Writers’ Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards

"Douglas uses her journalism skills to bring the history of these sites to life by profiling the people who make them what they are today, local restaurants to enjoy and even a playlist of music to enjoy along the way."

—NPR

"Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail, written by award-winning journalist and professor Deborah D. Douglas, opens up an opportunity for direct interaction with Black communities, landmarks, cultural staples and many overlooked yet significant locations in the history of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s."

—NBC News

"The book is an invitation to explore that history [outside our front doors], and to embrace our role in shaping it for the better every day."

—The Washington Post

"From the port where enslaved Africans entered America to the home where Medgar Evers was murdered, a new guidebook helps readers explore for themselves the history, the landmarks and the watershed moments of the Black American struggle for equality and justice."

—Associated Press

"It reads like a friend’s travel recommendation, not a stuffy guidebook, and captures the importance of each location...There are detailed maps and beautiful, full color photos which make you want to hop in the car and grab a plate of fried chicken from The Four Way. It’s a travel guide you won’t want to miss out on reading."—The Covington Leader

"Douglas’ care for ethical travel involves utmost respect for the business owners and residents along the trail."—NewsNation Now

"With profiles of national leaders and local heroes, helpful timelines, a suggested playlist and personal insights, Deborah’s U.S. Civil Rights Trail guide is the perfect companion for a journey along the Trail. Her book enhances the experience of the movement and it offers a deeper dive into an important time in America’s history."

—World Footprints

"Award-winning journalist and author Deborah Douglas takes readers through an eye-opening journey in her book."—Travel Noire

"While some travel guides focus on history, few do so in the level of detail as Douglas’…Douglas carefully scrutinizes source material from the movement, synthesizing facts and sharing her own impressions."

—The DePauw

"The book is filled with...moving moments — trials and struggles alongside triumphs and celebrations."

—Memphis Magazine

“The best sort of guide—one equal parts narrative, historical, and service-forward.”—AFAR Magazine

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2021

With this superb book—at once a reference work and a travel guide—about locations pivotal to the U.S. civil rights movement, Douglas (journalism, DePauw Univ.) raises the bar for other historically oriented travel books. Featuring clear and detailed maps, well-planned itineraries, and tips for places to see and things to do, the guide highlights 16 cities in the southern U.S., across 13 chapters. It starts in Charleston, SC, the port of entry for over half of enslaved Black people transported from Africa. The guide then winds through Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham, AL; Little Rock, AR; and Jackson, MI; it ends in Washington, DC. In addition to information on shopping, nightlife, food, arts and culture, and accommodation, Douglas expertly weaves in information about the civil rights movement to remind readers that these places are steeped in history. The book is authoritative and absorbing, with time lines, interviews with civil rights activists, personal reflections from the author, and playlists to listen to while on the road. The guide concludes with a selection of resources on the future of the civil rights movement and the history of civil rights actions, plus essential information for travelers, including COVID-19 precautions. VERDICT Laden with information, this affecting guide provides a nuanced and powerful representation of Black Americans' fight for freedom and equality. For every library.—Rob Tench, Old Dominion Univ. Libs., Norfolk, VA

Library Journal