When authentic storytelling meets community engagement, it becomes bigger than book sales.
The U.S. Civil Rights Trail is a growing collection of 120 landmarks across 14 Southern states that served as battlegrounds for famous marches, activist rallies and non-violent demonstrations. To help guide meaningful travel experiences along the Trail, Alabama Tourism Director Lee Sentell authored The Official U.S. Civil Rights Trail book along with its augmented reality experience, connecting generations and bringing history off the page through technology.
To ensure a successful book launch promotion, we employed a collaborative approach to highlight foot soldiers whose courage shaped civil rights history. In partnership with Luckie & Co., we developed and executed an integrated communications campaign leveraging our respective strengths across owned, paid and earned media, community engagement and public affairs.
Our team helped secure ongoing storytelling opportunities and executed community activations along the Trail where local high school and college students had the opportunity to learn about their cities’ civil rights legacy and engage in important dialogue with historians, foot soldiers, tourism representatives and public officials. These roundtables exemplified the why behind the book and helped make history accessible to the next generation of advocates.
Through community engagement, strategic partnerships and media relations, we successfully positioned the U.S. Civil Rights Trail book and AR experience as interactive elements to guide deeper travel experiences along the trail.
180+
MEDIA HITS IN 40+ STATES
20+
PARTNERSHIPS WITH HISTORIC INSTITUTIONS, TOURISM DEPARTMENTS AND MUNICIPALITIES
50+
STUDENTS ENGAGED REPRESENTING SEVEN HIGH SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
100+
ATTENDEES FOR INTIMATE COMMUNITY ACTIVATIONS IN THREE TRAIL LOCATIONS
6.2K+
BOOKS SOLD AND COUNTING
“These sites literally have the footprints of the people who made history, who changed the world. It’s important that families, all across this nation, regardless of race or ethnicity, bring their children to these historical sites to learn the stories of brave, courageous, visionary, nonviolent individuals.”
DR. BERNICE KING,
DAUGHTER OF Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
AND CEO OF THE KING CENTER
