Duration: 4 days / 3 nights

Dates: October 22-25, 2026

Cost: Single Room Occupancy $2100 / Double Room Occupancy $1800

Registration Deadline: September 15, 2025 or until filled

This immersive, place-based program invites participants to explore the pivotal, and often under-told, role of women and young people in the Civil Rights Movement through an in-depth study of Montgomery, Alabama. While traditional narratives frequently center male leaders, more than half of the movement’s activists were women whose organizing, caregiving, strategizing, and community leadership sustained campaigns such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Freedom Rides. This program brings those stories to the foreground.

Participants engage directly with the people and places that shaped the movement, learning from civil rights historians, descendants, relatives, and subject-matter experts connected to the women who led, fed, sheltered, and fueled transformative change. Through guided tours and site visits, participants trace the footsteps of historical giants, standing in churches, archives, homes, and public spaces where collective action unfolded and history was made.

Key visits include the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, where participants confront the continuum from enslavement to mass incarceration and examine how past struggles for racial and social justice connect to contemporary systems of inequality. Additional site visits, such as Alabama State University Archives and the Dr. Richard Harris House, a sanctuary for Freedom Riders, highlight the essential role of educational institutions, mutual aid, and community networks in sustaining the movement.

By the end of the program, participants leave with a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the Civil Rights Movement, a strengthened capacity to interpret social change critically, and a renewed sense of agency—seeing themselves not only as learners of history, but as active participants in shaping a more equitable future.