Dr. Rolando Herts to Oversee National Monuments in Birmingham

A Park Ranger shares the significance of the A.G. Gaston Motel with visitors on a summer day. (Alabama Tourism Department / Chris Granger)
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www.nps.gov

The National Park Service (NPS) announced the selection of Dr. Rolando Herts as superintendent of Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and Freedom Riders National Monument in Alabama, effective Sep. 9.

“We are excited to welcome Rolando as superintendent as he builds on more than a decade of distinguished leadership advancing cultural heritage tourism and education in partnership with the National Park Service,” said Mark Foust, NPS South Atlantic-Gulf Regional Director. “Rolando’s experience developing sites of memory and empowering communities to preserve nationally significant stories will help solidify the foundation of these two relatively new parks.”

Since 2014, Herts has served as the director of The Delta Center for Culture and Learning, and executive director of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, a Congressionally designated partnership with the National Park Service. He was previously associate director with the Office of University-Community Partnerships at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where he received the Berkowitz Distinguished Service Award as a Leadership Newark Fellow.

Through community engagement and partnership development, Herts has strengthened collaborations with the National Park Service, the Alliance of National Heritage Areas, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Mississippi Delta Blues Festival Brazil and various regional and community-based organizations. Under his leadership, The Delta Center and Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area received awards and recognitions from the National Park Service, National Humanities Alliance, Mississippi Heritage Trust, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, GRAMMY Museum Mississippi, Delta Business Journal, among others.

“I am excited and honored to have been selected for this key leadership role with the National Park Service,” Herts said. “Community engagement is essential to developing authentic cultural heritage tourism, especially with civil rights sites. I look forward to collaborating with various communities to further illuminate stories of the Birmingham Civil Rights and Freedom Riders national monuments.”

Herts is a research fellow with Tourism RESET, a multi-university and interdisciplinary research and outreach initiative focused on race, ethnicity and social equity in tourism. He serves on the Association of African American Museums Board of Directors and the Advisory Committee for the Center of Southern Culture at University of Mississippi. He previously served on the Delta Regional Authority’s Delta Leadership Network Regional Advisory Council, Mississippi Blues Commission and Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Services.

Herts holds a Ph.D. in planning and public policy from Rutgers Graduate School-New Brunswick, an M.A. in social science from The University of Chicago and a B.A. in English from Morehouse College. As an Executive Academy Fellow with the Delta Regional Authority’s Delta Leadership Institute, he earned an executive education certificate in authentic leadership from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. His interests include organizational partnerships and holistic cultural heritage development, which involves community engaged approaches to tourism planning, education, storytelling and preservation.

About Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument

Established in 2017, Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument interprets the struggle for equality and civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama. The park’s boundary includes The Gaston Motel, Kelly Ingram Park, 16th Street Baptist Church, St. Paul United Methodist Church and a number of other historic properties that are part of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Register Historic District. These properties are significant with regard to the civil rights organizing and protests that occurred in downtown Birmingham between 1956 and 1963.

About Freedom Riders National Monument

Established in 2017, Freedom Riders National Monument preserves and interprets the sites where, on Mother’s Day in 1961, a Freedom Riders bus was attacked at the Greyhound Bus Station in downtown Anniston, Alabama, and attacked again and firebombed six miles away on State Highway 202. The Freedom Riders were a small interracial band of activists challenging discriminatory laws that required separation of the races in interstate travel. Images of the attack appeared in hundreds of newspapers, shocking the American public and spurring the federal government to issue regulations banning segregation in interstate travel.

About the National Park Service. More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America’s 430 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Learn more at www.nps.gov, and on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

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