Montgomery, Alabama, isn’t just a city with history—it’s a city that shaped history. From Rosa Parks’s arrest in 1955, which ignited the bus boycott, a yearlong protest that propelled Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into national leadership, to the Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights in 1965, its streets have defined the fight for justice in the United States.
Today the city continues to honor its powerful Black History heritage with landmarks and a trio of Legacy Sites: the Legacy Museum, National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. This year, a new hotel in the heart of the city will offer another gateway to a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the civil rights movement.
Elevation Convening Center and Hotel will open in summer 2025, offering visitors a more immersive way to experience Montgomery’s moving Legacy Sites.
Courtesy of Equal Justice Iniative
Elevation Convening Center and Hotel, a 99-room hotel run by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), the nonprofit behind the Legacy Sites, is slated to partially open this summer, with a full unveiling expected at the end of the year.
“Elevation will extend the journey of learning and understanding the history of our nation while providing visitors with a serene environment to decompress and engage meaningfully with often overlooked narratives,” the EJI said in a statement announcing the hotel. “At Elevation, guests will be immersed in thoughtfully curated spaces that blend historical narrative, art, and architecture. The property’s amenities will enhance its mission by offering comfort, cultural enrichment, and opportunities for dialogue.”
The eight-story hotel, part of Preferred Hotels & Resorts, will house AYA Restaurant, helmed by chef Aneesha Hargrave, which will offer a menu that blends African, Southern, and Caribbean cuisines. The property will feature a pool, a gym, a library curated to highlight social progress with digital learning kiosks, a theater, a gallery space, meeting rooms, and a ballroom that can host up to 200 people. The accommodations will range from 340-square-foot single king and double queen rooms to an 1,100-square-foot Pinnacle Suite. Rates will start at $232 per night.
Guests booking into the Elevation Convening Center and Hotel will have several room options to choose from, ranging from a 340-square-foot Deluxe King (above) to a 1,100-square-foot Pinnacle Suite.
Courtesy of the Equal Justice Initiative
EJI plans to erect a new park and exhibit that will honor the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March. The route went right past where Elevation stands and on to the State Capitol, and it is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Another guest amenity, EJI notes, will be a shuttle between the three Legacy Sites.
Two blocks from the hotel is the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the first public memorial dedicated to victims of slavery and racial terror in the United States. Set on six acres, the memorial features haunting steel columns, each representing a county where lynchings occurred.
The memorial opened in April 2018 alongside the Legacy Museum, which is a mile away on the site of a former slave warehouse. The 11,000-square-foot museum has myriad exhibits, including those containing original slave auction ads, holograms that tell stories of enslaved people, and interactive displays that illustrate the evolution of racial violence and systemic inequality. Visitors can see artifacts from the Jim Crow era, learn about wrongful convictions, and explore data on how racial injustice persists today.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, dedicated to victims of slavery and racial terror in the United States, features hanging steel columns that represent each county where lynchings occurred.
Courtesy of Human Pictures
The third Legacy Site, Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, opened in April 2024. The 17-acre park, set along the Alabama River, explores the legacy of slavery through historical artifacts and sculptures. The centerpiece of the space is the National Monument to Freedom, a 155-foot-long, 43-foot-tall wall inscribed with 122,000 surnames of the 4.7 million formerly enslaved people recorded in the 1870 Census—the first census to list Black Americans entirely as free individuals.
While in town, travelers can also visit the Rosa Parks Museum, which tells the story of the Montgomery bus boycott and the fight against segregation, and the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where Dr. King served as a pastor. Another important site is the Holt Street Baptist Church Historical Museum, which opened on December 5, 2024, on the 69th anniversary of the start of the bus boycott; it features never-before-seen artifacts that provide insight into Montgomery’s racial climate in the 1950s.
