Black Tourism: New Freedom Sculpture Park Now Open In Montgomery

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

Will the grand opening of Alabama’s Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery boost sales in the already bustling Black tourism industry, which earned $109.4 billion in 2019?

The answer is yes. Dubbed as a “Feel it. Touch it,” slave memorial by NBC-News, the newly-opened memorial aims to tell the centuries-old struggles of Blacks in America. It officially opened on March 27 in Montgomery on a 17-acre site, which was a popular slave-trade route in Alabama, according to news reports.

The new slave memorial in Montgomery is located “along 17 acres above the Alabama River, which was a primary route to transport enslaved Africans during the slave trade,” according to its website. The new memorial is one of three historical sites operated by the Equal Justice Initiative: The Legacy Museum, located at 400 N. Court St., in Montgomery; The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, located at  417 Caroline St., Montgomery; and now, The Freedom Monument Culture Park, located at  831 Walker St., in Montgomery.

Free shuttle buses and free parking are offered at all three sites. All three sites are closed on Monday and Tuesday. Ticket sales start at $5, according to its website.

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) was founded and is headed by Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights attorney and renowned social justice activist, who conceptualized and helped launch all three sites in Montgomery, including the newest of the trilogy.

The Equal Justice Initiative has helped free more than 140 death row inmates wrongfully convicted.

“This is a place to have a deep, immersive engagement with the legacy of slavery, and primarily the lives of enslaved people, so we can have a deeper understanding of that,” Stevenson said in a recent NBC-News interview with Lester Holt. “It’s about humanizing it.”

Stevenson added, “There’s not much in the visual record of that era that helps you get a sense of the humanity of these people. But artists have done an amazing job.”

The Legacy Sites website offers this description. “Overlooking the Alabama River, Freedom Monument Sculpture Park honors the lives and memories of the 10 million Black people who were enslaved in America and celebrates their courage and resilience.”

The recent grand opening of the slave memorial in Montgomery comes on the heels of the (mid-June 2023) grand opening of the International African-American Museum in Charleston, S.C. According to USA TODAY, more than 100,000 people have visited the Charleston  Museum since it opened last summer. And an increasing number of Blacks have also moved abroad since the George Floyd killing occurred in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

Currently, there are about 300 Black-themed museums in the USA, including virtual ones. More are scheduled to open soon, including the National Urban League’s Civil Rights Museum in Harlem, the Go-Go Museum in Washington, D.C, The Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx, and the National Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Meanwhile, a Ghana’s Diaspora Affairs Office report said at least 1,500 Blacks moved to Ghana between 2019 and 2023.

As a result, domestic and international Black tourist sales will probably be brisk this year.

“Black travelers are interested in going to destinations they are curious about; where they feel a sense of connection, an opportunity to be challenged, and have the chance to step outside their comfort zone and be transformed,”  Travel Noire General Manager Marissa Wilson told CNN in a 2019 interview, at a time when nearly five million Black millennial travelers in the US had already spent at least $63 billion on travel in 2018, and at a time when Wilson predicted that amount would increase.

“And, just like every other group that travels, they want an opportunity to get away from everyday life and enjoy everything the world has to offer.” said Wilson, who heads Travel Noire, a digital media company that was launched in 2014 and offers travel tips to Blacks. Travel Noire has over a million social media followers, according to its website. It produces a newsletter that goes out to more than 150,000 people. It is boosting the Black tourism industry.

While it is unclear how many Black tourists will travel this year to the newly opened slave memorials in Montgomery or Charleston (or travel abroad) – it is clear that Black travelers comprised more than 13 percent of the U.S. leisure travel market in 2019.

It is also clear that more Blacks are joining the travel industry, including a group of individuals in Richmond who attended the inaugural meeting of Black Tour Operators that was held in October 2023.

“Something very powerful happened” as small, independent tour operators convened in Richmond and “shared their need to connect with other Black tour operators,” a statement on the Blacks in Travel and Tourism website explained, describing the impact of the inaugural meeting that it helped organize in Richmond in 2023. Blacks in Travel and Tourism is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It will hold its next annual meeting Oct. 10-11, 2024 at the Hyatt Centric in Fort Lauderdale.

For more on the newly opened Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, visit The Legacy Sites (eji.org).