WHY CHOOSE US?
Dr. Richard Bailey
A native of Montgomery, Richard Bailey has earned the BS, MEd, MA, and PhD degrees. A joint fellowship from Cleveland State (Ohio) University and the University of Massachusetts enabled him to travel and study in Europe and Africa.
Since returning to Montgomery, Dr. Bailey has been a consultant for the Center for Public Television at The University of Alabama, where he worked with the center’s productions on the Lincoln School of Marion and Reconstruction black officeholders. For the Division of Telecommunication and Educational Television at Auburn University, Bailey was an advisor for the Gees Bend story and the Horace King documentary. He was a consultant for the award-winning radio documentary, “Remembering Slavery,” produced by the Institute for Language and Culture at the University of Montevallo. In the mid-1980s Gov. George C. Wallace appointed him twice to the De Soto Commission to reconstruct the path of the Spanish explorer through Alabama. Kiosks along select Alabama highways identify the route of De Soto.
Bailey embarked upon his career as a tour guide, with his first citywide bus tour of Montgomery in February 1985. His excursions have also included walking tours of such local thoroughfares as Dexter Avenue, Commerce Street, Monroe Street, West Jeff Davis Avenue, and Rosa L. Parks Avenue, which became a week-long feature of the Montgomery Advertiser in 2004. Other walking tours have showcased Lincoln and Oakwood Cemeteries. He has also sponsored minibus tours of such Alabama municipalities as Selma, Tuskegee, and Tuscaloosa.
Some of his many speeches have focused on such local neighborhoods as Centennial Hill (February 2002), Cottage Hill (2005, 2017, 2018), and Bel-Aire (January 2009).
An Alabama author, his publications include Neither Carpetbaggers nor Scalawags: Black Officeholders during the Reconstruction of Alabama, 1867-1878 (5th ed.) and They Too Call Alabama Home: African American Profiles,1800-1999. C-Span’s spotlight of Neither Carpetbagger nor Scalawags in 2016 can be assessed at https://www.c-span.org/person/?richardbailey. The Montgomery City Council and the Montgomery-Tuskegee Times have cited him for his They Too Call Alabama Home.
A frequent radio and television talk show guest, Bailey has appeared on numerous radio stations and television networks to discuss Southern history, Alabama history, including the freedom rides; election returns; and contemporary events. His appearance at Malmstrom Air Force in Montana for a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech was broadcast live on the ABC, CBS, and NBC outlets and was carried on a delayed basis on Montana Public Radio and Montana Public Television. In 2004 he appeared on Bill Moyers Journal to discuss Gov. Bob Riley’s tax package. Along with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and noted attorney Fred D. Gray, C-SPAN captured his discussion of the role of lawyers during the Montgomery bus boycott and the civil rights movement at a forum held at the Dexter Avenue-King Memorial Baptist in December 2015. The video can be accessed at https://www.c-span.org/person/?richardbailey
Bailey has been a member of several speakers’ bureaus, including the Alabama Humanities Foundation.
Bailey takes a special interest in every tour and every individual tourist. He always pauses for questions and never rushes a tour to completion.