Skift Take
Historically, tourism in the Deep South steered clear of discussing slavery and Jim Crow, instead leaning on less contentious topics like country music and antebellum architecture. But now, civil rights museums are becoming an important part of the South's tourism landscape, even if many state tourism boards haven't gotten on the bandwagon.
Over the past three years, new and newly revamped civil rights museums have appeared across the Deep South, proving to be popular tourist attractions and economic engines.
But this is not happening without difficulty. Historically, due to the horrific and humiliating nature of slavery and the post-Civil War Jim Crow era, the South has been very slow to publicly recognize these atrocities, much less build expensive museums on the subject to attract local or far-away visitors.
According to studies conducted by Mandala Research, African American travelers spend $48 billion worldwide each year and are among the fastest growing traveler groups in the U.S. — 68 percent of African American travelers would like to learn more about African American history and culture while traveling.
Many southerners have feared that shining a light on the region's pre-civil rights past will bring a new wave of blame their way, but now the tourism benefits are hard to pass up. Civil rights tourism could be an economic lifeline, but it requires confronting some ugly truths.
Success Stories Present and Past
Memphis, Tennessee was among the first southern cities to participate in this trend with the National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel, the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 assassination. While the museum was established in 1991, it underwent a big renovation in 2013 and 2014 costing $27.5 million. It attracted more than 250,000 visitors in 2015, up 27 percent from the year before, and its income rose sharply to more than $4 million in 2015.
Faith Morris, the museum’s chief marketing and external affairs officer, said of the new civil rights museums, “It’s a sign of the times. Folks are still fighting for voting rights, that’s in the news right now. We’ve got modern-day slavery going on right now.” The museum conducts security screenings for visitors, and Morris noted that they were not a direct result of the 2015 Charleston church shooting, but a necessary precaution in general these days.
Tennessee’s Department of Tourist Development website leans heavily on musical star power, from Dolly Parton to Elvis. However, the website does have a fairly hidden section called “African American Heritage” that includes the newly remodeled National Civil Rights Museum. The department reported having no data on civil rights tourism in the state. Also, the museum’s website does not hook into a broader travel experience th
