It’s free to enter and explore this Smithsonian museum, housed in a striking bronze building, but timed tickets book up months in advance. That’s probably because the breadth and depth of its galleries, transporting visitors through US history from an African-American perspective, is so impressive. Allow a full day to absorb exhibits from iron shackles to costumes worn by black icons. Find more to do in Washington DC here.
The 1960s lunch counter sit-ins gathered momentum here in Nashville, when impeccably dressed students gathered in diners to silently protest against segregation, continuing to lobby for integrated public services until the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Woolworth on 5th was one of the protest venues and it’s now a restaurant and live music venue with retro decor and classic Southern dishes that honour its history. Find our full guide to Nashville here.
The country’s first state-funded civil rights museum opened in December 2017, fixing an unflinching eye on Mississippi’s most shameful history. The exhibits include the doors of Bryant Grocery, where 14-year-old Emmett Till was falsely accused of wolf-whistling a white shopkeeper in August 1955, leading to his brutal murder.
A grand, oak-lined avenue leads visitors to the botanical gardens and elegant buildings of the 17th-century Boone Hall plantation. Beyond the beautiful greenery, the site faces the tougher aspects of its past head-on through talks on slavery, a presentation about Gullah people descended from African slaves, and a permanent exhibition, Black History in America. The latter occupies former slave cabins.
Martin Luther King Jr began his career at this church, moving to Montgomery as a pastor in 1954. He was soon swept up by the Civil Rights Movement, but tours offer a moving and fascinating insight into the leader and his work. Charismatic curator Wanda Battle leads visitors around.
There are 14 sites packed into this 1.6-mile trail, which explores the lives of Boston’s African-American population during the 19th century. Most of the community lived in Beacon Hill, where the ranger-led tour encompasses schools, churches and stops along the Underground Railroad – a secret network that provided an escape route for people fleeing slavery. Discover more cultural places to visit in our Boston city guide.
Pay homage to one of the world’s most famous record companies at the Motown Museum, housed in one of the original recording studios. Exhibits trace its story from 1959, when Barry Gordy founded the label, to becoming the hit machine that launched the careers of Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder. Visitors can even sing a few bars in Studio A, filled with original equipment and instruments.
Some plantation tours skirt around the edges of the topic of slavery. But Whitney Plantation, an hour’s drive from New Orleans, isn’t one of them. The late 18th-century property is now an unflinching memorial that focuses on the lives of enslaved people, with tours of a slave cabin, freedmen’s church and sobering sculptures.
In 1908, Colonel Allen Allensworth joined with four other settlers to establish California’s first, and only, town to be founded, financed and governed by African Americans. The aim was to give black people, including former soldiers, the tools to improve their economic and social status. The park tells the town’s story from thriving community to its downfall due to outside forces, with restored buildings including Allensworth’s house, a church and library.
Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers... the super-cool Stax Recording Studios launched some legendary careers. This was also a place where musicians paid no heed to skin colour or segregation – only the tunes mattered. The museum, on the site of the original studios, is filled with candid photos, video clips and listening booths, telling the story of the label and showcasing music as a powerful unifier.
Exhibits at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa tell the story of the Greenwood District, once a thriving hub of business, blues and big band jazz dubbed 'Black Wall Street'. This was the richest African-American neighbourhood in the country until June 1921, when mobs of white supremacists burned the 35-block district to the ground, killing more than 200 people and destroying homes and businesses.
The curved arches of Edmund Pettus Bridge came to symbolise the spirit of civil rights’ activists after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches for voting rights. Protestors walking the 54-mile route were beaten back by police on what became known as Bloody Sunday, and two more marches followed, leading to the Voting Rights Act. Follow their footsteps over the bridge, a designated National Historic Landmark.
You can take a guided tour of 16th Street Baptist Church, the site of one of the most heart-wrenching and shocking murders during the Civil Rights Movement. White supremacists planted dynamite in the basement, causing a blast that killed four children as they dressed for Sunday service. A sculptural depiction of the victims – Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair – stands on the opposite street corner.
This small but storied museum at the Burkle Estate was once part of the Underground Railroad network that helped people flee slavery. Its director, Elaine Lee Turner, and her sisters participated in several marches and sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement and were detained multiple times between them – Jet Magazine called them the most arrested civil rights family.
This Harlem theatre is a living, breathing, singing monument to talent and achievement, with Billie Holiday, James Brown and Ella Fitzgerald among the impressive roster of names to have performed here. The neoclassical building originally hosted burlesque shows, relaunching in the 1930s with a focus on the neighbourhood’s African-American community. It still hosts shows from comedy to gospel singers.
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The Lorraine Motel hit headlines in April 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated on the balcony of room 306, where he was staying. Now it’s a museum tracing the history of civil rights from slavery to King’s legacy, which is most poignant in the final exhibit – that same hotel room, recreated in painstaking detail from peach bedsheets to a glass of milk on the table.
Charles Young’s parents escaped slavery when he was just a baby, giving him the chance of an emancipated life in Ripley, Ohio. He flourished and became a teacher before graduating from military academy and rising through the ranks to become the highest ranking black officer in the US army until his death in 1922. This national park, which includes the home of Colonel Young, offers tours by appointment while the site is further developed.
Martin Luther King Jr described Birmingham as “the most segregated city in the country”, so it’s apt that the city has this comprehensive museum. The interactive exhibits focus on the inspiring civil rights protestors and the violence inflicted upon them. Outside, Kelly Ingram Park has a statue of King and sculptures depicting attacks on child marchers.
Malcolm X lived in this brown clapboard house with his half-sister, civil rights activist Ella Little Collins, and it’s his last known surviving boyhood home. Historic Boston is working with owner Rodnell Collins, Ella’s son, to rehabilitate the home and transform it into housing for those studying African-American history and civil rights.
This national park traces the story of the Underground Railroad’s most famous conductor, Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery and helped others flee via a network of trails and safe houses. A visitor centre has a film, exhibits and a research library, and makes a good starting point to a trip along the Harriet Tubman Byway, which follows her journey along the Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Gullah Geechee people, descended from Africans enslaved on barrier island plantations, have a rich and fascinating culture that’s evident in their art, music, food and language. This heritage corridor joins up coastal communities from North Carolina to Florida, encouraging visitors to meet Gullah Geechee people and learn about their culture and history. Stops include the Gullah Museum of Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.
This urban park, in downtown Atlanta, is a good starting point if you’re planning a MLK-inspired trip. This is where the civil rights leader was born – his parents decided on a home birth in protest at segregated hospitals. The buildings that make up the site include King’s birthplace and boyhood home, the church where he was baptised and his burial place. Discover more places to visit in Atlanta here.
There’s no softly-softly approach at this museum from the Equal Justice Initiative. Nor should there be. From the location – the site of a warehouse where people were enslaved – to the chilling National Memorial for Peace and Justice, where sculptures and columns represent slavery and lynching victims, it serves as a stark and sobering reminder of racial injustice.
There are historical markers dotted throughout this district, including one of few remaining Freedmen’s Towns – neighbourhoods built by people who were formerly enslaved. The area is also on the National Register of Historic Places, yet several 19th-century homes have been demolished in recent years and efforts to further protect its structures and 1846 Oak Hill Cemetery are ongoing.
A short walk from the Martin Luther King Jr National Historical Park, the African-American Panoramic Experience (APEX) Museum retells history through a different lens. Exhibits on slavery share gallery space with stories of unsung African-American heroes from business owners to astronauts. There’s also a fascinating collection of photographs showing how the museum’s locale, Auburn Street, was once a thriving black neighbourhood.
The Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland in 1966, with the aim to empower African-American communities and protect them from police brutality. In 2019 the sweeping Oakland Museum of California added a new permanent exhibition, Black Power, telling the party’s story through photographs, posters and paintings.
It’s believed as many as 15,000 free and enslaved African Americans were once buried in this six-acre plot, obscured by development and landfill until construction workers unearthed some of the remains during groundbreaking for a federal office building. The site of the 17th-century cemetery is now marked by a granite wall of remembrance and memorials.
The US Civil Rights Trail officially launched on Martin Luther King Jr Day in January 2018, highlighting museums and significant sites connected to the 1950s and 1960s movement around the country – many places in this list are included on the route. The interactive map covers more than 100 landmarks across 14 states, from Kansas to Washington DC, making it easy to plan a civil rights-themed road trip.
The nationwide trail also incorporates routes linking up significant sites in specific destinations, such as Arkansas’ collection of heritage markers. The state’s most famous landmark is Little Rock Central High School where nine African-American students famously enrolled in 1957, during a period of forced desegregation.
This series of markers in Mississippi, launched in 2011, both faces up to atrocities and celebrates heroes, such as the students of Tougaloo College, who sparked the sit-in movement in 1963. Stops include the home of Medgar Evers, the Mississippi civil rights’ leader who was assassinated outside his front door.
Take a look at America's most historic attractions from every decade here