Every year, Converge’s Office of Biblical Diversity offers an opportunity to experience and gain a greater understanding of American history rarely taught in our schools. But it’s more than a lesson about bygone times. The Cultural Immersion Trip to the cradle of the American Civil Rights Movement – Montgomery and Selma, Alabama – will help you gain a deeper understanding of others, a painful history for African Americans in the United States and the importance of biblical diversity.
This two-and-a-half-day trip helps build bridges between people of varying ethnicities and encourages ongoing cultural relationships. Along with visiting several cultural and historic sites, your group will come together multiple times throughout the trip to discuss the experience and its impact.
Tour locations
Legacy Museum
Montgomery, Alabama
The Legacy Museum provides a comprehensive history of enslavement, reconstruction, segregation, racial terrorism and mass incarceration in the United States. From the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its impact on the North and coastal communities across America through the Domestic Slave Trade and Reconstruction, the museum provides detailed interactive content and compelling narratives that are brought to life through film, images and first-person accounts.
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
Montgomery, Alabama
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence. The site is just a few blocks from the site of Rosa Parks’ 1955 arrest that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped catalyze the American civil rights movement.
Tabernacle Baptist Church and Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church
Selma, Alabama
Tabernacle Baptist Church and Brown Chapel A.M.E Church in Selma hosted many of the pivotal early moments in America’s Civil Rights movements. Each held mass meetings for voting rights in the early 1960s (Tabernacle held the first one) and many of their members were on the front lines of the marches, including on the infamous Bloody Sunday. You’ll visit the churches, meet men and women who participated in many historic moments and hear stories from the people who lived them.
Edmund Pettus Bridge
Selma, Alabama
Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge is one of the most visible symbols of the American Civil Rights Movement. The location of Bloody Sunday, Turnaround Tuesday and when Dr. King led marchers all the way to Montgomery from Selma. During the trip, you will walk across the bridge in the footsteps of those who marched for their civil rights in 1965, stopping at the scene of one of our nation’s most shocking moments.
How it works
What is it?
Who should attend?
Who will facilitate the trip?
Is transportation and lodging provided?
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Unity in diversity
Converge is a movement of churches working to help people meet, know and follow Jesus. We do this by starting and strengthening churches together worldwide. This includes reaching people of all colors, cultures and classes with the gospel of Jesus Christ and making him known throughout the world.
To accomplish this, Converge's Office of Biblical Diversity works alongside its U.S. regions to encourage, empower and equip your church to champion biblical diversity in your community.
