traveler looking to ascertain more about our country ’s civil rights heritage will before long have a chance to gain the track .
Due to launch in January 2018 , the newCivil Rights Trailwill tie more than 100 historic sites that tell the taradiddle of African - Americans ' struggle for equal right field . Some of the place are familiar national landmarks , while others reveal little - known history behind milepost result in the movement , notesLonely Planet .
Former National Park Service theater director Jonathan Jarvis induct the beginnings of the project in 2015 to assist the spot gainUNESCO World Heritage sitestatus , according toCondé Nast Traveler . The tourism agency of the country where the sites consist are shop at the design and promotion of the track .
The itinerary boast landmarks across a quarter of U.S. district , from Topeka , Kansas , to Wilmington , Delaware , to New Orleans . Many are locate in Alabama , include Montgomery , the site of the 1955bus boycottand other watershed events ; Tuskegee , where the outstanding university for African - American scholars was founded in the late 19th century ; Birmingham , where Dr. Martin Luther King , Jr. was jailed for nonviolent dissent ; and Selma , where K process for voting rights .
Other highlights include the newNational Museumof African American story and Culture in Washington , D.C. ; Little RockCentral High Schoolin Little Rock , Arkansas ; the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans , whichdesegregatedthe motor hotel in the Deep South ; and the Woolworth ’s tiffin counter ( now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum ) in Greensboro , North Carolina , where four fateful students launched thesit - in movementon February 1 , 1960 .
The projection ’s debut next year will also coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of King ’s assassination in 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis , Tennessee — now one of the trail ’s featured sites .
[ h / tLonely Planet ]
