Civil Rights Tourists Head to Alabama

M O N T G O M E R Y, Ala., Feb. 10 -- In Montgomery, Jefferson Davis Avenuecrosses Rosa Parks Avenue, creating an appropriate intersection fora place that used to rely on Civil War tourism but that now drawsvisitors to a growing number of civil rights attractions.

Events that made Alabama a civil rights battleground in the1950s and '60s — Ku Klux Klan bombings, beatings of Freedom Ridersand the jailing of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — are now beingremembered in state-of-the-art museums and historic preservationprojects.

"Alabama stands at the epicenter of America's secondrevolution," says Jim Carrier, author of A Traveler's Guide tothe Civil Rights Movement.

Dollar signs back up his judgment. State tourism director LeeSentell says black heritage tourism is a growing part of Alabama's$6.8 billion-a-year travel industry.

"No other state has the quality or quantity of destinations ofwhat was a battlefield in the '60s," Sentell said.

An Historic Triangle

Many of Alabama's major attractions are found in a triangleformed by Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma.

Birmingham was the first major Alabama city to develop its civilrights history when the city's first black mayor, RichardArrington, helped create a historic district around the park andchurch where many demonstrations began. The city's Civil RightsInstitute opened in 1992.

The institute takes visitors back to the time when life inAlabama was separate and unequal. A major attraction is the cellwhere King wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" whileincarcerated for civil disobedience.

Across the street is the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, thesite of civil rights rallies and of a bomb planted by Klansmen thatkilled four girls on Sept. 15, 1963. It was the 47th bombing inBirmingham during the civil rights era and one of the reasons thecity was often called "Bombingham."