As a Southerner born and bred in Georgia, I know all too well the assumptions that most hold about this region of our country. But I also know that throughout the South there are hordes of Black and brown families who have built entire lives here. That Southern foodways has its genesis in the kitchens of Black men and women who were enslaved. And I know that the histories of countless Black women live in the shadows in many Southern cities, known by most and celebrated by none.
That doesn’t mean that these women, whom I consider to be both my foremothers and ancestors, shouldn't be heralded as the heroes they are. One of the best ways to honor them is to seek out the places and spaces tied to them scattered throughout the South, from Montgomery to Jackson. There will always be more women's stories to uncover, but think of this guide as a starting point to inspire you to start looking for traces of these women everywhere.
Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama
Rosa Parks was not the docile woman that she has historically been painted as. She was an activist—notably fighting for victims of domestic and sexual violence before her involvement with the NAACP rallying against civil rights injustices. And that day when she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery? Not a tale of her being really tired and not wanting to move. It was a planned protest.
Learn more about this woman and her enduring legacy at the Rosa Parks Museum, presented by Troy University. Through the museum's interactive exhibits, including a restored bus from that era and a library with reference materials, you can learn about her true story. I found it enlightening and empowering when I visited, and learned more about Rosa than I ever had before and left wanting to learn more about her.
The National Museum of African American Music in Nashville
Country music reigns supreme in Nashville. It is, after all, known as Music City. For a long time, country musicians have flocked to Nashville to get their big start—on the coattails of Black people and Black musicians who have been minimized from the canon. I’ve been to Nashville twice in the past year and it’s astonishing to me how Black people and their contributions to the city’s culture at large have been purposely erased. Visiting the National Museum of African American Music during my last visit was a reminder that we have always been there, thriving in Southern cities that present a white revisionist spin on history.
The museum itself is highly interactive. At regularly planned intervals, a musical performance flashes on a big screen in the main gallery with surround sound. When I was there, it was a performance of Prince’s “Purple Rain.” I also made my own beat that I was able to email to myself. But, perhaps most importantly, are the Black women musicians within the genres of folk, country, and Americana that you can learn about within these walls. Women like Linda Martell, Rhiannon Giddens, and newcomer Mickey Guyton—all history makers in genres that are void of much color at all.
The King Center in Atlanta
To know about Atlanta is to know about Martin Luther King, Jr. He grew up here in the Old Fourth Ward. His childhood home used to be open for tours. As a child I vividly remember walking the length of the home, the wood creaking underneath my feet. His wife Coretta Scott King is integral to Atlanta as well. It was Coretta who continued to push his work forward after his murder in the creation of The King Center in 1968. Visit the crypt that sits atop a reflection pool where both Martin and Coretta have been laid to rest to pay your respects.
Medgar Evers sites in Jackson, Mississippi
The story of Medgar Evers’s short life and subsequent murder is haunting. A few years ago when I embarked on a road trip throughout the South, I stopped in Jackson and peered at the house he and his wife Myrlie Evers-Williams used to live in. It looked like a regular, cozy home. But it was also the site of where he was murdered in his own driveway. Medgar died in 1963; his wife is still alive. Evers-Williams has continued her work, later becoming the first female chair of the NAACP chapter that she worked at alongside her late husband. Visit their former home, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum for an exhibit on both of them, and the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute to reflect upon the legacy he left behind and the woman ensuring it remains present even today.
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