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 Review by
Richard Sumrall
In a wonderful new addition to the body
of American travel guides, award-winning author Jim Carrier has
compiled "A Traveler's Guide to the Civil Rights Movement," a
state-by-state listing of the museums, monuments and historic
landmarks that recognize the civil rights movement of the 1950s and
1960s.
According to U.S. congressman and civil
rights veteran John Lewis, the book "takes readers on a journey to
the memorials, museums, battlegrounds, and sacred places that tell
the amazing story of America's continuous struggle for freedom and
justice, a struggle that reached its zenith during the nonviolent
revolution for civil rights."
The book identifies sites in
Washington, D.C., Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and
other states. Although the sites related to the seminal moments of
the civil rights movement are included, such as Selma and Edmund
Pettis Bridge in Alabama and the U.S. Supreme Court building in
Washington, D.C., the book's importance lies in revealing the places
and events of the civil rights movement that were of great
importance yet less well-known to the general public. Here's a
sample:
Washington, D.C.
The Carter Woodson House is located at
1538 Ninth St., NW. Dr Woodson is described as "the man most
responsible for changing American opinion about the intelligence and
potential of blacks." It is at this site that he founded the
Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Scholarly work
here included disproving the myth of genetic inferiority and the
notion of the "happy slave."
Virginia
The site of the Franklin and Armfield
Slave Trading Firm is located in Alexandria. Despite the federal
government's ban on the importing of African slaves in 1808, this
firm maintained a lucrative business in the slave trade. At the
height of their business they sold thousands of slaves annually and
dominated the sea trade between New Orleans and Virginia. The house
is recognized as a National Historic Landmark.
North
Carolina
At the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Historic
Site in Sedalia, N.C., an 18-year-old black scholar named Charlotte
Brown founded the Palmer Institute in 1901. It was the state's first
prep school for blacks. Students were exposed to educational
opportunities that combined academics with the practice of proper
etiquette and social graces of the day.
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Alabama
In Plateau, a small Alabama community
adjacent to Mobile, stands the Cudjoe Lewis Memorial Statue.
Captured in Africa, Lewis was on the ship Clotilde, documented as
one of the very last ships to illegally bring slaves into the United
States. Arriving in Mobile Bay in 1859, some of the slaves ended up
in present-day Plateau, otherwise known as "Africa Town." Lewis was
the last surviving member of the Clotilde and lived in Plateau until
his death in 1935. An underwater archaeological search for the slave
ship continues today.
Mississippi
The Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale is
one of the premier museums devoted to America's musical roots. In
addition to an interpretive display of the Delta cotton culture that
influenced this genre, the museum also contains the small log cabin
once occupied by the legendary bluesman Muddy Waters.
The Dunleith Mansion in Natchez has a
dual role in civil rights history. It serves as an example of the
Southern antebellum plantations that signified white wealth during
the era of King Cotton. Another side of its history involves a
Dunleith mansion slave boy named John Lynch. Lynch gained his
freedom, took night school classes from the Freedman's Bureau and
eventually become Mississippi's first black congressman and head of
the first black bank in the United States.
"A Traveler's Guide to the Civil Rights
Movement" is a fascinating read on the history, people and places of
the American civil rights movement. Used in conjunction with any
reliable road atlas, the book identifies many of the most important
(and least-known) sites associated with this turbulent time in our
nation's history. Travelers will find the book's geographic format
handy and easy to use for planning trips and vacations.
In the
introduction, congressman Lewis writes: "A story is told in the
hopes that something will be done to memorialize it. This book was
written, in large part, to preserve the history of civil rights for
new generations that may take them for granted." This book is
recommended to everyone who enjoys history, travel or is seeking a
better understanding of the struggle for equality in the United
States.
[Richard Sumrall,
Lincoln
Public Library District] |
