American Vacations and Travel: July 2013

Rev. Bernice King, Daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., to Appear at Special Program Aug. 22 "Covering Civil Rights"

Make Some Noise Students and the Civil Rights Movement Photo Credit: PR Newsire

Black Travel Bloggers Meetup to cover this historic event with special guest speaker Rev. Bernice King, please reserve your seat at CoveringCivilRights.eventbrite.com.

On Aug. 22, 2013, at 7 p.m., the Newseum, in partnership with the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), will host a free evening program, "Covering Civil Rights: On the Front Lines." The program will include a special appearance by Elder Bernice King, chief executive officer of The King Center and daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. Rev. King will receive the NCNW's 2013 Leadership Award.

Moderated by Sirius XM radio host, Joe Madison, the event will also feature a discussion with journalist and author of "Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter's Account of the Civil Rights Movement," Simeon Booker, who was on the front lines of covering the civil rights story. The program is free and open to the public, but seats are limited and must be reserved at CoveringCivilRights.eventbrite.com.

The Newseum's exhibit, "Make Some Noise," will spotlight key figures in the student civil rights movement, including John Lewis, now a U.S. representative from Georgia, and Julian Bond, who later became chairman of the NAACP. Through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, young activists took direct action to end segregation and break down racial barriers in voting rights, education and the workplace by organizing sit-ins, marches and voter registration drives.

The exhibit also will feature a section of the original F.W. Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where in 1960 four African-American college students launched the sit-in movement, and a bronze casting of the Birmingham, Ala., jail cell door behind which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. penned his famous "Letter From Birmingham Jail" in 1963.

In addition to "Make Some Noise," the Newseum will launch a three-year changing exhibit, "Civil Rights at 50," which will be updated each year to chronicle milestones in the civil rights movement from 1963, 1964 and 1965 through historic front pages, magazines and news images.

Many elements of the civil rights exhibit will be incorporated into the Newseum's Digital Classroom, the museum's online education center. Launching Aug. 30, 2013, this free resource will explore the civil rights movement through the lenses of historical connections, media literacy and civics and citizenship using videos, archival news footage and interviews. These standards-aligned lesson plans will help teachers enhance student engagement with Newseum content, their communities and their peers across the country.

More about all the Newseum's civil rights initiatives can be found at newseum.org/civilrights.

On Aug. 2, 2013, in time for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the Newseum will open "Make Some Noise: Students and the Civil Rights Movement," an exhibit that explores the new generation of student leaders in the early 1960s who fought segregation by exercising their First Amendment rights and making their voices heard.

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French Broad River to Craggy Gardens - Blue Ridge Parkway

A late June day trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville, North Carolina provided some beautiful views before the fog and rain shortened our trip. The parkway is a scenic 469 mile link between Shenandoah National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We traversed about 65 miles of the parkway from NC 191 just south of the French Broad River to NC 226 at Gillespie Gap.

View upstream from the French Broad River bridge toward Ball Mountain

View downstream from the French Broad River bridge

Visitor Center and Headquarters

Interior of the Visitor Center

Haw Creek Valley

Tanbark Ridge

The parkway from the Bull Creek Valley overlook

Bull Creek Valley

Lane Pinnacle

View northwest from the Craggy Gardens visitor center

Another view of the ridges northwest of the Craggy Gardens visitor center

The fog moves in at Craggy Gardens

A break in the fog provided a magnificent view along the road

View from Three Knobs overlook

The parkway website is http://www.nps.gov/blri/index.htm.

Devil's Racetrack - Cumberland Trail State Park

I hiked to the Devil's Racetrack above Caryville in late June, 2013. The Devil's Racetrack is the name of the vertical rock fins visible on the east side of Interstate 75 heading north from Caryville. This is the southern terminus of Cumberland Mountain. The overlook atop one of the fins is 3.3 miles from the trail head and about 850 feet higher in elevation. Even though I was hiking on a beautiful Saturday morning with temperatures in the upper 70s to low 80s, the parking lot was empty when I arrived and I did not see another person during my entire trip. However, the sounds of the freeway were a constant companion. The trail is one small section of the Cumberland Trail that will stretch almost 300 miles from Cumberland Gap in the north to the Tennessee River Gorge in the south. The trail head is located on Bruce Gap Road just a few hundred yards north of its intersection with Royal Blue Road, also known as Old Tennessee 63. The trail is not heavily used, so plants have grown up along it in several places. Due to the number of poisonous plants along the trail, I recommend wearing long pants even in the heat of summer. For the same reason, this is not a trail for small children during the active season for such plants. I found that a pair of walking sticks were very useful on this hike. They were pressed into cobweb removal duty in addition to normal use.

For a shorter hike of around three miles round trip, there is one additional unofficial trail access point along dead end Shelton Hollow Road. Parking is limited and muddy. The road is not patrolled by park rangers and has been occasionally used as a garbage dump. Do not leave any valuables in your vehicle at either location as numerous break-ins have been reported over the years.