Dear Friend of the National Parks,

Join NPCA experts on this remarkable journey through some of the most
significant sites associated with American civil rights. Along the
way, you will have a unique opportunity to meet with NPCA partners,
local historians and even some of the faithful activists who played a
role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. You will also learn
firsthand about NPCA's role in expanding cultural resource
protections to help preserve the story of civil rights.

On the Road to Freedom
Understanding Civil Rights Through Our National Parks and Heritage
Areas
October 1-8, 2021
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Your NPCA Host: Alan Spears, NPCA's Senior Director of Cultural
Resources

Alan is a 22-year veteran of NPCA. He is a member of the Government
Affairs department, the staff lead for an emerging cultural resources
team and NPCA's resident historian. Alan helped to win national
monument designations for Fort Monroe, Harriet Tubman and Birmingham
Civil Rights. He currently conducts our National Heritage Area defense
work and leads NPCA's campaigns to designate new national park
sites for Julius Rosenwald and Emmett Till.

The Itinerary

Our program begins in Birmingham, Alabama, where we will visit the
Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, a national park site that
NPCA helped establish in 2017. The group will explore the Birmingham
Civil Rights Institute, which houses the cell door behind which Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. penned his famous "Letter from
Birmingham Jail." We will then meet with Rev. Carolyn McKinstry,
a survivor of the 1963 bombing at the historic 16th Street Baptist
Church before traveling to the future home of the new Freedom Center,
an educational hub that will focus on civil rights and other cultural
topics.

Next, we will visit Montgomery, Alabama, where we will see the former
home of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King and the Legacy Museum, which tells
the history of racial inequality and economic injustice in the United
States. Then, we will venture to the National Memorial for Peace and
Justice, a site that explores America's history of racial
inequality and the ongoing history of lynching in America. Later in
the evening, you will explore the city at your leisure with the
freedom to eat dinner at one of Montgomery's famed southern
style restaurants.

From there, we will stop at two National Park Service sites: the
Lowndes Interpretive Center and the Selma Interpretive Center. The
Selma Interpretive Center marks the beginning of the Selma to
Montgomery National Historic Trail. Here, we will meet with Joanne
Bland who, at 11 years old in 1965, was the youngest person to have
been jailed during any civil rights demonstration during that period.
Then we will walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

In Jackson, Mississippi, we will visit the Medgar and Myrlie Evers
Home National Monument and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum where
we will meet Hezekiah Watkins, the state's youngest Freedom
Rider, who will share his extraordinary story with the group. For
Civil War buffs, we will then visit Vicksburg National Military Park,
where the Confederacy surrendered to Union forces in 1863. That
evening, we will be introduced to the most famous of Delta musical
traditions, "The Blues," with a private performance with
local musician Bluesman McKinney.

Departing Jackson, we'll head north through the flatlands of the
Mississippi Delta, stopping first in Cleveland to meet with Dr.
Rolando Herts, director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning
and executive director of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage
Area. From there, we'll continue through multiple small towns
along the Mississippi Freedom Trail to the Emmett Till Interpretive
Center and Sumner Court House, which together tell the story of the
brutal murder of Emmett Till and point a way toward racial healing.

Our program concludes in Memphis, Tennessee, with a visit to the
National Civil Rights Museum at The Lorraine Motel, the site of the
assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. We will then explore
the world renowned Stax Museum of American Soul Music, which provides
insight into the civil rights story within the Memphis music scene,
and meet with Jeff Kollath, the executive director of the museum. Trip
participants depart from Memphis the following morning.

Click here to download the full trip brochure (PDF, 5 MB).
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To learn more and reserve your spot today, contact me at 202-454-3305
or [email protected]. Thank you for your support!

See you in the parks,

Jared Dial
Travel Program Manager


NPCA | 777 6th Street, NW | Suite 700 |
Washington, DC 20001 | 800.NAT.PARK | [email protected]

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