Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma

Three Alabama cities concentrate some of the most remembered sites of the Black civil rights struggle in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. They are one to two hours’ drive from each other and form a two- to four-day itinerary.

Birmingham, an iron-and-steel industrial city, was the scene of the 1963 marches, when children and young people faced fire hoses and police dogs. An institute, a church and a park, all on the same block, tell the story of that year. The city’s steelmaking past is visible in the old blast furnaces and in an iron statue atop a hill.

Montgomery, the state capital, is where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in 1955, which sparked a boycott that lasted more than a year. The city has a museum dedicated to her, the state capitol, and a complex of museum, memorial and sculpture park that addresses the history of Black people from the Atlantic slave trade onward.

Selma, on the banks of the Alabama River, is home to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where marchers demanding voting rights were attacked in March 1965. Weeks later, the march continued from Selma to the Montgomery capitol.

This destination brings together 3 cities: Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma.