A Black Heritage Trail makes its way through this region, from Selma through Montgomery to Tuskegee. In Selma, visitors can visit such sites as the National Voting Rights Museum and the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Along the way from Selma to Montgomery on U.S. Highway 80 is the Viola Liuzzo Historic Marker, another reminder of events in the struggle for Civil Rights that took place here.

In Montgomery, the state’s capital, there is much to see and do. Visitors can tour the recently restored Capitol building and see the First White House of the Confederacy.

In addition, there is the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, just down the hill from the Capitol, the place where Martin Luther King Jr. served his first pastoral assignment. Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., designed the moving Civil Rights Memorial here.

Old Alabama Town in Montgomery gives a glimpse of what life was like in early Alabama while the city’s Shakespeare Festival offers outstanding drama presentations.

Hank Williams Sr. is buried in Montgomery as are Governors Lurleen and George Wallace.

In Wetumpka is Jasmine Hill Gardens, an attraction built on love. Mary and Ben Fitzpatrick, sweethearts from childhood, married and, in 1927, built this hideaway for themselves.

The two spent part of their time here, reading poetry and strolling their gardens. They also spent part of their time traveling, mostly to Greece. There, they commissioned copies of works of art that appealed to them. They set them up in their gardens, surrounded by the plants and trees of the South. Also on the grounds, they constructed a copy of the Temple of Hera. Recent additions to the gardens are sculptures that honor the Olympic Games played in Atlanta.

Also in this part of the state is Auburn University, the cross-state rival of the University of Alabama, and alma mater of Heisman Trophy winners Pat Sullivan and Bo Jackson as well as Chicago White Sox power hitter Frank Thomas.