Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/5950
In Prince George's County, Smith describes the heritage tourism market as "still growing and developing" yet impor- tant. "What makes it important is its significance to the region," Smith says. "As neighbor to Washington, DC, we are located in what may be the most powerful region in the world. As we bring new and exciting products online (such as our exciting National Harbor development that opened in 2008), heritage tourism provides the connection between the past and present, not just as it relates to Prince George's County, but the entire Washington metro area." The county boasts more than 260 historic sites, but because many of them are not open to visitors, Smith says, "the strength of heritage tourism in Prince George's County is not necessary economic at this time." E N C OU N TE R I N G H I S TO R Y The heritage tourism experience runs the gamut from browsing museum exhibits and attending an arts festival or performance to actually participating in an authentic cul- tural activity or a reenactment of a historic event. Underground Railroad tours in many Midwest and Northeast destinations recount stories of enslaved Africans who risked their lives for freedom and take visitors to some of the places where they found refuge. One company that has been offering such tours for more than a decade is Motherland Connextions in Niagara Falls, New York. Tours in western New York and southern Ontario, led by guides dressed in period costumes, include views of the Falls. There also is an Underground Re-enactment Tour that lets tourist become "Freedom Seekers" escaping through the woods. Motherland Connextions owner and "station master" Kevin Cottrell is a member of the newly formed New York State Underground Railroad Commission. He also coordi- nates the North Star Project, which was formed to create a heritage tourism dis- trict in Niagara Falls. Nearly one hundred years after slavery ended, America's Southern region became the center of the African- American Civil Rights Movement. Today, many of the top visitor destinations in the South have made a 180-degree turn from violent resistance to the movement to a proud promotion of their civil rights heritage. James H. Smither, president of the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau, refers to the Civil Rights Movement as "the second American Revolution." And because so many piv- otal battles in that struggle took place in Birmingham, it became "the city that changed the world." The Birmingham Civil Rights District includes many historic landmarks related to that era, including the famous 16th Street Baptist Church, the site of the 1963 KKK bombing that killed four young girls. But another local house of faith, Bethel Baptist Church, played an even more critical role in local civil rights history. White supremacists bombed the parsonage of the church on Christmas night in 1956 while the pastor Fred Shuttlesworth and his family slept. Miraculously, though their home was destroyed, they were unharmed. In 1958 another bomb was set in the unoccupied church. In the face of such violent hatred, Rev. Shuttlesworth became an unwavering leader of the movement. "It is the city's Civil Rights District . . . that fully tells the story of the country's African-American citizens' struggle for human rights and simple decency," Smither says. "It is also within the district that much of the culture of a race is nurtured through celebration and preservation." A protest by a small but courageous group of college stu- dents secured Greensboro, North Carolina's place in the annals of civil rights history, and a long-awaited visitor attraction dedicated to that event is finally about to open. "The most significant site related to the Civil Rights movement is the brand new International Civil Rights Center & Museum which opens on the 50th anniversary of the lunch counter sit-ins at the F.W. Woolworth's in down- town Greensboro," Pope says. "February 1, 1960, saw four NC A&T freshmen walk downtown from the campus and peacefully ask for a cup of coffee at the 'whites only' lunch counter. Their actions helped ignite the sit-in movement across the nation. At the time, no one realized that the five and dime store would become a monument to freedom around the world." The museum is located on the very site where the Woolworth's once stood. "Not many museums sit in the footprint of history. This one does," Pope says. "The exhibits and historical artifacts are not to be missed." Some destinations have developed tourist attractions that Black Meetings & Tourism December 2009: www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com 24 Rendering of the brand new International Civil Rights Center & Museum which opens on the 50th anniversary of the lunch counter sit-ins at the F.W. Woolworth's in downtown Greensboro. Photo Credit: Greensboro CVB KEVIN COTTRELL JAMES H. SMITHER