Tennessee

Launching the sit-in movement: Nashville’s civil rights museum and sites

Nashville Public Library Civil Rights Room

While Tennessee’s capital city isn’t usually mentioned as a center of protest, Nashville played an out-sized role in planning and driving the Civil Rights Movement. Much of it was based in the city’s historically Black colleges, including Fisk University, Tennessee State, (then Tennessee A and I), Meharry Medical College and American Baptist Theological Seminary. Students […]

Memphis civil rights tour: I AM A MAN Plaza and the nation’s top civil rights museum

Memphis is the city where Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream came to an end. On April 4, 1968, a sniper took his life as he stood on a motel balcony. The nation’s heart was broken, and the civil rights movement lost its momentum. A visit to the city can be a solemn pilgrimage, but Memphis […]

Where to go

A traveler can find traces of civil rights history across the country, from Hawaii to Maine. But the key battles of the Civil Rights Movement were fought in the Deep South, and it’s where you can find historic sites and moving monuments. We’ll show you how to visit and experience these important places, including:

Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of Bloody Sunday

The “lynching memorial” in Montgomery, Alabama

The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where four girls died in a Sunday school bombing

The Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated in Memphis

Central High School, where the Little Rock Nine students faced angry mobs in Arkansas

The Woolworth’s counter where students stage a sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina

Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth home and grave in Atlanta