Southern United States

Arrive in Jackson and transfer independently to the hotel.

Following a morning lecture and lunch, walk to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, where a series of galleries packed floor to ceiling with photographs, texts, and recordings provide an honest and painful account of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Gather this evening for a welcome dinner prepared from locally sourced ingredients.

Begin today with a tour of the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, learning about the life of Medgar Evers, the field secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi who was assassinated in the driveway of his Jackson home in 1963. Then visit Malaco Records to meet with the co-founder for a tour and a discussion of the independent label’s history, focusing on local artists and songwriters of the many major blues and gospel acts they represent.

Continue to the COFO (Council of Federated Organizations) Civil Rights Education Center for lunch and a discussion. Hear about the role COFO played in organizing the 1963 Freedom Vote and the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project. Hezekiah Watkins, the state’s youngest Freedom Rider, joins us to share his extraordinary story. This afternoon, visit Farish Street, the thriving center of African American life in Jackson during the Jim Crow era, and pass by the former Greyhound Bus station that played a prominent role in the 1961 Freedom Rides. Stop by the Big Apple Inn, where owner Geno Lee tells his family story—the restaurant played host to civil rights leaders and Freedom Riders; and Medgar Evers rented an office upstairs. Enjoy a private blues performance tonight after dinner.

Drive through the flatlands of the Mississippi Delta on our way to Little Rock, stopping in Indianola to visit the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center, whose mission is to empower, unite and heal through music, art and education. Next, drive to the Museum of the Mississippi Delta, where we meet and dine with Sylvester and Mary Hoover, owners of Hoover’s Grocery and Laundry in the Baptist Town neighborhood. Mary, an accomplished cook, owned a popular soul-food restaurant, which led to her being cast as an extra in the movie The Help, filmed nearby. After lunch, Sylvester accompanies our group to Money and the remains of Bryant’s Grocery, the site associated with the murder of black teenager Emmett Till. Stop in Sumner at the Emmett Till Interpretive Center and for dinner before continuing to Little Rock.

This morning, during our tour of the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, a national emblem of the often-violent struggle over school desegregation, we meet with Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine. Continue to the Clinton Presidential Center for a tour and lunch. Then pass by the Daisy and L.C. Bates Home, which served as a gathering place for the Little Rock Nine, as we leave the city for Memphis. Dine on traditional Memphis barbecue this evening.

After breakfast, head to the Lorraine Motel, now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum. A large white wreath hangs on the balcony outside Room 306, which has been preserved to capture what it looked like on April 4, 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on the balcony while in town to support a sanitation workers’ strike. Have lunch in the Soulsville neighborhood before visiting the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Later, pass by the Mason Temple where Dr. King delivered his prophetic “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.

Depart early this morning for our drive to Birmingham. There, at the 16th Street Baptist Church, meet with Reverend Carolyn McKinstry, who was 14 and inside the church when a bomb planted by white supremacists killed four young girls in September 1963. View Kelly Ingram Park across the street, site of civil rights rallies. Continue our journey to Selma, where we see the Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, from which three marches from Selma to Montgomery began. At the nearby Selma Interpretive Center, converse with movement foot soldier Annie Pearl Avery. Walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge before driving the 54-mile Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, which commemorates the route of the 1965 Voting Rights March in Alabama.

Explore the Centennial Hill area this morning with Dr. Valda Harris Montgomery, who shares her experience as a teenage daughter of civil rights activists and a playmate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s children. View the Dexter Parsonage Museum, the house in which Dr. King and his family were living when it was bombed in January 1956, and where he made his personal commitment to nonviolence. Continue to the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. Created by the Equal Justice Initiative, the museum investigates the history of racial injustice and the narratives that have sustained injustice across generations. After lunch in the museum complex, take time to reflect at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a six-acre memorial that uses sculpture, art, and design to contextualize racial terror. Share our experiences during an unforgettable farewell reception and dinner at the Bricklayers Hall, the former headquarters of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) where Dr. King, other leaders, and MIA staff organized the Montgomery bus boycott.

Transfer independently to the airport for flights returning home.