I received an invitation from the state of Alabama Tourist Board (officially named Sweet Home Alabama) to come on a Civil Rights Tour. The trip would last a weekend and myself, as well as 5-6 other journalists/bloggers would get to visit places such as The King Center in Atlanta, GA and the Alabama Archives in Montgomery, Ala. I love history so obviously I packed a bag and set off to the airport to begin the tour. Here's what I learned:
1. It might behoove black people to take on (and actually practice) some of Dr. Martin Luther King's ideals today. Pretty much everything that Dr. King preached about - more specifically - the importance of banding together in a non-violent manner - still rings true today. We started the tour in on Wednesday, September 13 Atlanta with a visit to the King Center. Also known as the Center for Nonviolent Social Change, it was established in 1968 by Coretta Scott King. While there, we got to view all kinds of King's memorabilia and I learned more in-depth information about his nonviolence ideals. One of King's greatest gifts was that he was able to successfully get black people to band together and fight (without raising their fists or use weapons) in order to gain their rights. Of course, this movement was not without its challenges, but I believe this is definitely something that black people could do today when it comes to getting equal treatment in today's society.
2. You are responsible for your own education. The next day (Thursday, September 14) we visited the Rosa Parks/Dexter Parsonage Museum in Montgomery, Ala. The woman giving the tour (Dr. Cherry) didn't allow us to record her or take her photo (which was kinda weird) but she was a really smart woman. (I still managed to snap a pic with her anyways hahaha) The home we toured is where Dr. King and his family lived from 1954-59 and you could even still see the dents on the front porch where bombs went off. (Lots of people were obviously upset about the bus boycott.) Dr. Cherry informed us that Dr. King received multiple death threats daily via phone and, no matter how scared he got, he continued his work. One thing he always did was to read and research everything and Dr. Cherry said that he was very good at taking responsibility for learning everything he could. She talked to us about the importance of education and that it was especially important for black people to get as much as we could. She was extra proud of me after hearing that I'm currently in graduate school working on a Master's degree.
3. There will be things in life that will break your heart, but you must never let it break your spirit. As part of the tour, we got to visit Selma, Ala. and our tour guide was a woman who survived Bloody Sunday. On February 17, 1965, a state trooper fatally shot Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion. A protest march from Selma to Montgomery was scheduled and on March 7, John Lewis and Hosea Williams lead a group of 600 black people across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The peaceful marchers were met by armed state troopers who attacked them. This was the catalyst for the march led by Dr. king and Rev. Ralph Abernathy to the State Capitol. I learned about the death of housewife Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a white woman who was killed at the hands of racists while trying to help blacks who were being attacked by state troopers and was horrified. Actually, I was horrified by all of it. While I'd certainly heard all about these events, walking the streets of Selma and across the Edmund Pettus Bridge made the events more vivid in my mind. But, our tour guide said that although the events during that time broke her heart, it never broke her spirit. These words stuck with me.
Overall the trip was very eye opening. Since returning, I've checked out tons of books about the Civil Rights Movement because, as it turns out, most everything that I learned in school doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what really happened during that time.
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