A custom-designed motorcoach, branded to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the civil rights protests in Birmingham that helped dismantle legal segregation in Alabama and nationwide, is about to hit the road as part of a coordinated campaign to bring more tourists to the Magic City.

“Visitors from all over the globe travel to Birmingham to learn and reflect on what happened here in 1963,” said John Oros, president and CEO of the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB).

“Today, and every day, we must continue to remember those who participated in changing our history, and honor how they changed the lives of so many future generations by giving them the priceless gift of hope. This campaign is an opportunity to share that message across the country,” Oros said.

The 56-passenger motorcoach, which sports historic images from the 1963 protests, is slated to transport groups around the country through the end of the year. It is part of a larger campaign by the CVB “to honor the history, progress and impact of the events of 1963 and the civil rights movement” and encourage “visitors from around the world to travel to Birmingham, Alabama to experience the city’s civil rights history.”

Denise Gilmore, senior director of the city’s Division of Social Justice and Racial Equity, said, “As this bus travels throughout the United States, we hope that it will remind some and inform others about what happened in Birmingham – because we know that what happened here did indeed change the world.”

Gilmore was among the officials and civil rights “foot soldiers” who helped unveil the bus during a recent event in front of Birmingham’s historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The church was a location for mass meetings in the spring of 1963. Many of those attending were local Black high school students, and younger, who marched from the church to protest the city’s Jim Crow laws. The church also was the site, in September 1963, of a horrific Sunday terror-bombing by Ku Klux Klan members that killed four little girls.

Young protestors in front of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, May 1963. (Frank Rockstroh/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

“As we reflect on the 60th anniversary of the civil rights movement and unveil this bus that will go around the nation, I hope that it serves as a reminder that here in Birmingham, we are continuing to teach lessons, we are continuing to touch lives, and we will continue to transform the world,” said the Rev. Arthur Price, pastor of Sixteenth Street Baptist.

Also attending the bus unveiling were activists from the Birmingham movement who marched in 1963.

“Sixty years ago, more than 1,000 African American students left this church to march into downtown Birmingham. These brave foot soldiers heard the call from Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. Martin Luther King and SCLC organizer James Bevel, and marched for the right to live in a desegregated city,” said Paulette Roby, chairwoman of the Birmingham Civil Rights Activist Committee and a participant in what later became known as the Children’s Crusade.

In addition to the bus, the tourism campaign includes a new online microsite, 60.birminghamal.org, that will provide information for tourists coming to the city to see civil rights-related sites. More than 100,000 visitors from around the world visit the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and its related sites, CVB officials said.