LA CIVIL RIGHTS TRAIL MEETINGS - For the past month, Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser’s Office of Tourism has been hosting a series of meetings in cities across the state to help identify locations for a new Louisiana Civil Rights Trail. Meeting organizers had an open invitation to the public to help identify and interpret historic events, physical structures, and locations that helped shape civil rights history in their local communities. A total of nine meetings began late last April in New Orleans and concluded in Lake Charles on May 22nd. Red River Radio News caught up with one such meeting that occurred in Shreveport last week, it took place in the Valencia Recreation Center in the Stoner
Hill Neighborhood. Brandy Evans is Vice President of Communications for the Shreveport-Bossier Visitors and Convention Bureau. She shared some thoughts as to what the establishment of a Louisiana Civil Rights Trail could mean to the local community.
Robert Trudeau conducts tours focusing on African American History in Shreveport. He says there is a need for an active Historic Civil Rights Trail in Louisiana as the subject matter already attracts visitors from across the U.S. and internationally.
Tabitha Harrison Taylor, lives in Shreveport’s MLK neighborhood, formerly known as The Cooper Road Neighborhood, she says a Civil Rights Trail would give an opportunity to showcase lesser-known histories of African-American neighborhoods and how they contributed to Civil Rights progress.
The timeline for the creation of a Louisiana Civil Rights Trail has yet to be established. But the office of tourism has gathered e-mails from meeting participants and has said will provide updates as things develop.
