Planning a family vacation? In 2019, our family embarked on a mini Civil Rights tour in Louisiana and Alabama. Our time changed the way we understood ourselves and our history, and I want to offer to you a Civil Rights tour itinerary for families.

Penny remembers the jars of soil from places where people were lynched when she sits in History class. Marilee reads historical fiction and can envision what a plantation looked like and has a sense of what enslavement meant for real people. William studies our contemporary voting rights moment and relates it back to the march from Selma. Our whole family—from Marilee, who was 8 when we took this trip, through Peter and me—now have a better understanding of how we can participate in healing the wounds of injustice and divisions in our nation.

So I am offering this potential Civil Rights tour itinerary for families specifically, but really for anyone, wanting to set out on a quick tour to learn about the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights in the southern United States. This short trip is an invitation to participate in healing.

The itinerary includes:

• A 3-day tour through Alabama, including lodging recommendations
• Bonus locations in Louisiana and Washington D.C.
• Resources for you and your kids to read and listen to about each location

In his speech about the Montgomery bus boycott, Dr. King said:

“It is not enough for us to talk about love…There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.”

Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love. 

Taking this trip took me one step closer to correcting all that revolts against love in my own soul, in my own community, and in this nation. The call to seek justice, the call to acknowledge the brutal pain and evil of our past, the call to work against ongoing injustice, the call to give of time and money and energy towards healing–it is not a call for punishment, guilt, or shame. It is a call that invites us to participate in love.

{While many museums have reopened, you’ll want to verify that these locations are not closed due to Covid restrictions.}