Georgia Civil Rights Trail

Georgia Civil Rights Trail

In commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement in Georgia, the Georgia Historical Society embarked upon a new, statewide public education initiative that employs a unique and enduring educational and economic development tool – historical markers – while also leveraging existing technology and online resources to enhance the public’s understanding of an era in which religion, education, politics, and free enterprise intersected to create a successful movement that ended Jim Crow and secured civil rights for African Americans. Recognizing that the struggle for civil and human rights began long before the mid-twentieth-century Movement, the Civil Rights Trail includes historical markers that explore stories from Reconstruction through the late twentieth century.

History of the Georgia Civil Rights Trail

GHS’s Georgia Civil Rights Trail initiative focuses broadly on the economic, social, political and cultural history of the Civil Rights Movement. Specifically, roadside historical markers tell the story of the Movement in Georgia by guiding audiences to the sites where history happened, inviting them to stand on the ground where struggles and events took place, and providing a foundation upon which to build and cultivate a deeper understanding of the past and its relevance to the present. The Civil Rights Trail highlights significant events from communities around the state to illustrate the overarching themes of education, leadership, massive resistance and white backlash, desegregation, and voting rights.

Historical markers share local stories and events while placing them within the larger context of the Movement’s history. GHS launched the Civil Rights Trail in four key communities – Albany, Atlanta, Columbus, and Savannah – initially erecting four new historical markers on the following topics:

  • The Albany Movement, Albany
  • Atlanta Student Movement, Atlanta
  • Primus King’s Challenge to the White Primary, Columbus
  • Savannah Sit-ins and Boycott, Savannah

These markers help bring the narrative of Georgia’s movement toward civil rights forward into the modern era.  Together with nearly fifty existing GHS markers, these four explore these issues central to the late-nineteenth-century and twentieth-century struggle for civil and human rights and form the CRT. The Georgia Historical Marker program thrives on community partnerships throughout the state. GHS encourages community groups, municipal agencies, and others to consider the stories of the Civil Rights Movement in their own areas and invite the nomination of new topics in this series to be erected in collaboration with the Georgia Historical Society. Potential additional topics could include, but are not limited to, leaders of both races such as Ralph Abernathy, Ivan Allen, Ralph McGill, W.W. Law, and W.E.B. Du Bois; and stories of triumph such as the election of Andrew Young as US Congressman and Maynard Jackson as the Mayor of Atlanta, or stories of conflict such as the Atlanta Race Riots of 1906.

Telling Stories of the Movement Through Historical Markers

The following GHS historical markers recognize sites associated with the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia and form the foundation of the Georgia Civil Rights Trail. GHS encourages applications from community groups throughout Georgia interested in expanding the story of the Movement through the development of new historical markers. For more information on the marker application process, please click here.

Historical Markers: Tools for Education and Economic Development

Historical Markers are excellent tools for teaching Georgia and American history in relevant ways to diverse audiences. By integrating online and mobile technology into its historical marker program initiatives, GHS ensures historical markers serve not only as enduring and accessible educational resources, but also as tools for driving economic development in the communities, many rural, where markers are located.

Each historical marker is included in GHS’s award-winning online historical database which allows users to create custom-designed driving routes based on markers geared to their personal interest and travel plans. An accompanying mobile app (available for iOS and Google phones) shows markers within a designated distance of a user’s current or anticipated Georgia location.

Project Partners

The Georgia Civil Rights Trail is a project of the Georgia Historical Society with support from the Georgia Department of Economic Development and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.