What’s New in Alabama

Friday, 16 Feb, 2024 0

History is a learning experience, and in Alabama, it is always expanding.

This year sees a host of new historical attractions brought to life, including the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, while the state becomes more connected as a new Amtrak line launches.

See what’s new for 2024.

New attractions

Africatown Heritage House: Clotilda the Exhibit: More than 50 years after the United States banned participation in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the schooner Clotilda trafficked men, women and children from Africa to Mobile in 1860. It is the last known American slave ship and was destroyed to hide the evidence of the illegal activity. The ship’s remains were discovered and identified in 2019.

Africatown Heritage House opened in late 2023, with multisensory exhibits and artifacts from the ship to bring life to the story of the 110 survivors. Visitors can also take a boat tour on the Mobile River and hear stories of the captives who sailed the same waters — but in a very different manner.

Holt Street Baptist Church: What once was the first meeting spot for the Montgomery Improvement Association and where Martin Luther King Jr was voted as president of the MIA in 1951, is now a museum and the newest addition to the Alabama Civil Rights Trail. The MIA was created after Rosa Parks was arrested and the Montgomery Bus Boycott had begun.

Equal Justice Initiative Announces New Freedom Monument Sculpture Park: The Legacy Sites invite visitors to reckon with America’s history of racial injustice in places where that history was lived. Opening early 2024, the new 17-acre Freedom Monument Sculpture Park will bring together history, narrative, large-scale sculptures, contemporary art commissions from many of the greatest living artists, a new National Monument to Freedom honouring enslaved people who were emancipated after the Civil War. There are many historic artifacts that together create an immersive, multifaceted examination of America’s history.

The Sculpture Park will join EJI’s Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice to form the Legacy Sites. The Sculpture Park fuses art with history, and animates the struggle of enslaved Black Americans, and sheds light on the nation’s history. Designed to be experienced as one journey, visitors are encouraged to visit all three Legacy Sites.

Transportation

Amtrak Passenger Train: The long-awaited Amtrak train service is expected to open in the fall. The train will travel twice a day from New Orleans to Mobile. So similar in history, food and culture, it’s only natural that Mobile and New Orleans will soon be linked with four stops in Mississippi – Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula.

Carnival Cruises: Carnival Spirit is back in the Port City of Mobile and operating a series of six- and eight-day sailings through the spring of 2024.

The new sailings for fall (October) 2024 and spring 2025 from Mobile will include five-, six and eight-day Caribbean itineraries, as well as a 12-day Carnival Journeys South Caribbean cruise. The itineraries include some of the longest voyages from the Alabama Cruise Terminal ever since Carnival began sailing out of Alabama in 2001.

Mobile has been charming visitors since 1702, and today is a colorful, fun-loving city. It’s one of the oldest port cities in America, and just blocks from the Mobile Cruise Terminal is a vibrant, walkable downtown district.

American Cruise Lines: The luxury riverboat cruise that offers Tennessee River excursions with regular stops at communities along the path made 14 stops in Florence this summer. It will nearly double that amount on four different ships in 2024.

The Shoals Music Tours will be an addition for the 2024 local stops. The tours aboard a bus are offered twice a week for an historical tour and twice a week for a tour on local music. In addition to continuing those tours, the music tours also will be available twice a day on the days the riverboat docks in Florence.

60^th anniversary of the Birmingham Civil Right Movement

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of the bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church, which tragically killed four young Black girls, and launched the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement. This monumental tragedy took place in Birmingham, Alabama, and it is an essential part of the Alabama Civil Rights Trail.

Learn more about : Sweet Home Alabama ( N. America )

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TravelMole Editorial Team

Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.

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