The 500 Miles of Freedom College & Civil Rights Tour is a trip organized by the Omega Lamplighters, a young men's mentoring program for at risk youth. Every August we travel to visit Colleges and Universities as well as historical sites to the civil rights movement. We hear often you don't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been and this trip brings that to life. We visit historical sites in past years we visited New Orleans, historic Treme area and its lower 9th Ward that's still left damaged from Hurricane Katrina. We've also walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama the site of Bloody Sunday, Traveled to Baton Rouge to uplift Cameron Sterling, son of Alton Sterling who was killed in front of a Louisiana convenient store. This year we will travel to Nashville, TN, Atlanta, GA and Albany GA. With stops at the Tennessee Museum, Tennessee State University, Fisk University, MeHarry Medical College and Vanderbilt University. In Atlanta we will visit the Human and Civil Rights Museum, the Dr. Martin L. King Jr. national historic park, Georgia Tech University, Morehouse College, Clark Atalanta University, and the birth home of Dr. King.The trip is for males only, mentors, Dad's, Uncle's, male cousins etc. This is a important part because majority of the young men we service come from single family homes. So for them it's bigger than just going out of town it's an opportunity for them to bond with men and father figures. There are some Fathers who are active in their sons life and those Dad's who attend the trip get to share these moments with their son and get a chance to observe them in their natural environment and watch them mature before their eyes. Our kids need to see this beautiful country and see it's history. Sometimes youth can get isolated to their small communitie and think it's only Tallahassee but this trip let's them see there a whole world out there beyond here and that they must learn their history and share it with everyone.