Cradle of the Confederacy & Civil Rights

Mostly Montgomery, plus Selma & Tuskegee

WOW! We had 11 nights here, long enough to have some hangout days, get the 100K service done on The Beast, and still spend 7 days visiting many, many sites. Montgomery is known as the Cradle of the Confederacy and the Birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, so much of our touring had to do with the history of enslavement, racial terrorism, segregation and civil rights activism…not to mention the taking of Native American lands. BUT…for HGTV fans, we did stop in Wetumpka, Alabama and take a picture of the Big Fish House!

Visits to 3 (4) new National Park Sites:

Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site (#236), where the first African American military pilots began their flying adventure, at Moton Field, in Tuskegee, Alabama. The Army Air Corps conducted a “military test” to determine if African Americans could be trained to fly combat aircraft. The Tuskegee Airmen’s performance helped drive the end of Segregation in the Military. Great exhibits in 2 hangers, one original, one a reconstruction.
Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site (#237), where, in 1881, Booker T. Washington arrived in Alabama and started building Tuskegee Institute both in reputation and literally brick by brick. He recruited the best and the brightest to come and teach here, including George Washington Carver, who arrived in 1896. The 2 buildings actually administered by the NPS were closed for renovations, but we wandered around campus and visited the gravesites of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.
Horseshoe Bend National Military Park (#238), where on March 27, 1814, Major General Andrew Jackson ‘s army of 3,300 men attacked Chief Menawa’s 1,000 Red Stick Creek warriors fortified in a horseshoe shaped bend of the Tallapoosa River. Over 800 Red Sticks died that day. The battle ended the Creek War, resulted in a land cession of 23,000,000 acres to the United States and created a national hero of Andrew Jackson. We visited all the sites and got in a 2 miles hike.
Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, which commemorates the people, events, and route of the 1965 Voting Rights March in Alabama, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. We had the opportunity to participate in the 59th Commemoration of Bloody Sunday and walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with others (including Kamala Harris and Merrick Garland), but decided to avoid the crowds. We visited Selma, walked across the bridge, and drove the 54-mile trail on other days.

One of the Red Tails, a P-51, flown by the Tuskegee Fighter Pilots
The old Admin Building at Tuskegee Institute, where the first students literally made the bricks and built the buildings
Booker T Washington gravesite at Tuskegee Institute
George Washington Carver gravesite at Tuskegee Institute
At the horseshoe bend in the Tallapoosa River, where the Red Stick warries, women and children were camped
Location where the Red Stick Creeks built fortifications across the land in the bend of the river
Gail walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma

Visits to other Civil Rights sites in Montgomery

Civil Rights Memorial & Memorial Center, located just around the corner from the historic church where Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor during the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Alabama Capitol steps, where King spoke to thousands at the conclusion of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march. The Memorial, dedicated in 1989, was designed by Maya Lin, who found inspiration in the paraphrase from Amos 5:24 that King used in his “I Have a Dream” speech.
The Legacy Museum, an amazing museum which we had to visit twice to begin to take it all in. It’s accolades sound like hyperbole, but…are not. It is an immersive experience telling the 400 years of the history of Enslavement to Racial Terrorism to Codified Segregation to Mass Incarceration. No Pics Allowed. The many sculptures by Ghanaian artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo alone are worth the price of admission.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, there are no adequate words. Powerful. Impactful. Gut Retching. Aligned with the Legacy Museum, it is an outdoor memorial dedicated to the thousands of victims of Racial Terror Lynchings in the US. There are iron monuments for every county in the US where there was a known lynching, with a list of all the known lynchings for that county.
Rosa Parks Museum, which tells the story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956. It is on the Troy University, Montgomery Campus, at the site where where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man.

Civil Rights Memorial
Civil Rights Memorial
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
Rosa Parks, at the Rosa Parks Museum…many statues of her around Montgomery

Visits to other sites in Montgomery

The Alabama Capitol in Montgomery (#35), another capitol that does not offer tours, but did have a very good guide for self tours…and our last capitol for awhile.
First White house of Confederacy, a historic house in Montgomery, which was the initial executive residence of President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis and family during early 1861.
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum is the only museum dedicated to the lives and legacies of F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald in the world. The Fitzgeralds lived here from 1931 until 1932, writing portions of their respective novels, Save Me The Waltz and Tender Is The Night. Museum on the first floor, two “Hotel Suites” with kitchenettes on the second floor.