New journey information showcases the South’s embrace of civil rights tourism, however Florida is unnoticed
Florida is beginning to recognize the dire injustices of its past, but it is lagging behind as other states advance.
In 2019 Florida attempted to spark a growing interest in civil rights tourism when it added five locations to the US Civil Rights Trail. The trail was set up the previous year to connect the more than sixty primary and forty secondary sites that played a prominent role in the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.
At the time of Florida’s addition to the trail, Orlando Weekly criticized the descriptions of the places provided by the state-owned Visit Florida Tourist Board, characterizing the descriptions as “so carefully harmless that it is difficult to say why they matter”.
These descriptions left out important details and ignored many other places across the state. Today, in the middle of Black History Month, the Visit Florida home page has few minorities on its home page, and the small section on the African American heritage of its website is not recognized.
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This may be why the state is noticeably absent from Moon Travel Guides’ new Moon US Civil Rights Trail guide. Of the more than 300 pages in the book, Florida websites are not mentioned. Instead, intended as a travel companion for those looking to explore the trail or parts of it, the book focuses on eight other southern states and the District of Columbia.
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Written by Deborah D. Douglas with a foreword by artist and civil rights activist Bree Newsome Bass, the Moon US Civil Rights Trail helps travelers understand the context of the various locations along the trail. It also provides recommendations for local black-owned businesses, festivals, weather warnings, and other important information.
“Black communities and cultural experiences rarely make it into official travel bulletins and resources because they are not often viewed as destinations or must-sees. But they are, ”said Douglas. “On the Moon US Civil Rights Trail, I encourage visitors to visit restaurants, shops, and other black-owned local events to celebrate African American contributions to American culture and history.”
The Moon US Civil Rights Trail guide is the latest in a growing tourism sector. Even before the race bill last summer, interest in civil tourism was growing across the country. When the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture opened its doors in 2016, it saw record breaking demand with timed entries necessary to keep the crowd at bay.
Two years later, when a lynching memorial opened in Montgomery, Alabama, it received international attention. The Equal Justice Initiative, the organization behind the memorial, worked with Florida officials to erect a memorial to July Perry, who was lynched on election night in 1920.
Earlier this year, Nashville opened the National Museum of African American Music. The museum is paired with several other civil rights-based attractions and monuments, many of which are dedicated to what Douglas described as the “hotbed of student activism” in Nashville in the 1960s. The International African American Museum is due to open in Charleston next year. The Waterfront Museum, located near the site where many African slaves were first brought to the United States, is expected to attract more than 125,000 guests a year.
These museums and historical sites are a growing part of the cultural heritage tourism sector, an industry that is estimated to have an economic impact of $ 171 billion. Douglas’ book brings these pages together and adds important narrative to them.
However, as the sector grows, more museums and monuments are expected. In a 2016 interview with the tourism publication Skift, the deputy program manager of EJI pointed out the parallels with “Holocaust museums around the world, which invite understanding of these crimes and those affected, and we dare never to forget what’s happened.”
Florida has several Holocaust museums. In Orlando, a new 40,000 square meter Holocaust Museum of Hope and Humanity is planned for the former site of the Orlando Chamber of Commerce on the shores of Lake Ivanhoe. The group behind the new museum, Florida’s Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center, saw some backlash from right-wing news outlets late last year when they opened a temporary exhibit that had thematic links to the nation’s racial injustices.
Even though the July Perry Memorial is in downtown Orlando, Orange County’s other 32 lynchings, which are the highest number of any counties in the state, according to the EJI, have not yet received equal attention.
The region lacks many of the civil rights resources and museums that other communities have used to help current and future generations understand this aspect of American history. Instead, places like the Orlando Science Center, which houses the first memorial to the Tuskegee Airmen’s Red Tail pilots, had to fill the void.
“It’s powerful to connect with the places where successful resistance began,” said Douglas. “We are literally surrounded by greatness and we don’t even realize it. So many of the places I have visited while writing this book are part of everyday life, but we are missing out on the opportunity to examine these stories and experiences in terms of the greatness they represent. ”
“Fortunately, more and more cities and institutions are awakening to the narrative force of African American history, including the civil rights movement,” added Douglas.
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The Moon US Civil Rights Trail: A Guide to the People, Places, and Events that Produced the Movement is now available in independent bookstores and online.
For those looking for more information on local civil rights history, the Orange County History Center’s exhibit on the 1920 Ocoee Massacre is on through March 7.
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