In February, 2020, not-for-profit Road Scholar will launch its inaugural Civil Rights Conference in Montgomery, Alabama. The conference will welcome expert civil rights speakers, including Bryan Stevenson, public interest attorney, activist and founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, as well as Road Scholars from across the U.S.
During this seven-night conference, participants will visit monuments, museums and historical sites in Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham, Alabama. Presenters include Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative and subject of a recent HBO documentary and the upcoming film “Just Mercy.” Participants will also meet Carolyn McKinstry, survivor of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, and Sheyann Webb-Christburg, known as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s“Smallest Freedom Fighter,” who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, known as Bloody Sunday, at the age of nine. Participants will also take part in a four-part lecture series by historians on civil rights.
Road Scholar designed this conference on the coattails of “The Heart of the Civil Rights Movement,” a successful civil rights program launched in 2017 and attended by over 400 people to date.
“Road Scholar’s ‘The Heart of the Civil Rights Movement’ was a wonderful experience for your soul, intellect, and understanding of the problems that face our country,” said participant Susan Goldberg. “I met inspiring people, experienced a lot of emotion and emerged with renewed faith in others and my own ability to help the world around me.”
This impact is exactly what Road Scholar hopes to impart on participants in February during its new conference.
“We are in an important moment in American history,” said James Moses, president and CEO of Road Scholar. “Racial dialogue is just as vital now as it was during the civil rights movement. We hope to educate our participants on civil rights history so we can understand how the attitudes of the ’50s and ’60s impact the racial climate of today.”
To learn more about Road Scholar’s Civil Rights Conference, visit: www.roadscholar.org/civilrightsconference.
About Road Scholar
Road Scholar is the nation’s largest educational travel organization for adults – a true university of the world. This not-for-profit educational organization offers 5,500 extraordinary learning adventures in 150 countries and 50 states.
Road Scholar educational adventures are created by Elderhostel, the not-for-profit world leader in educational travel for adults since 1975. To learn more, please visit press.roadscholar.org or check our blog at blog.roadscholar.org.
SOURCE Road Scholar
