Walking the Path of the Civil Rights Movement
Submitted on November 30, 2022
By Phoebe Tripure, Class of 2025
Throughout the history of the United States, the Civil Rights movement has been critical in ending segregation, addressing voting rights, and launching equal opportunity employment and housing legislation. Just before Thanksgiving, around 40 Georgetown College students and ten faculty and staff members traveled to Alabama to experience the power and history of the movement in person.
Dr. John Henkel, Dr. Abraham Prades, Dr. Curtis Sandberg, and Dr. Roger Ward accompanied a group of freshmen and sophomores to Birmingham, Selma, and Montgomery, Alabama to visit several Civil Rights landmarks and museums. The group visited the 16th Street Baptist Church, The Legacy Museum, The Harris House, the bridge from Selma to Montgomery, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Each of these locations marked a critical moment in the Civil Rights movement, are working to educate people about civil rights, or serve as memorials for those lost in the movement.
The first stop was the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1963, members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed the church, killing four young girls. Our guide shared with us that for most who attend the church service every Sunday, it is just church. Many in our group found this shocking since the church experienced this violent bombing less than 50 years ago.
Our next stop was The Legacy Museum, operated by Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). EJI is a nonprofit that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. Their museum highlights the African American experience in the United States over the years, including the issues of slavery, discrimination, and mass incarceration. Even after slavery was abolished, a series of Jim Crow laws continued to marginalize African Americans. The laws denied their right to vote, hold jobs, or get an education. The Legacy Museum helped students understand the obstacles faced by African Americans and how much work we still have to do as a nation.
We also visited the Harris House, a safe space for the Freedom Riders and significant Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Junior, John Lewis, and Rosa Parks. We met Dr. Montgomery, a woman who was very young when the Harris House became her home. She has made it her mission to share her experience in efforts to educate others on the impact of the Freedom Riders, who participated in Freedom Rides on busses in the South to protest segregated bus terminals and drew international attention to the civil rights movement. Dr. Montgomery still lives in the house today. Standing in the same rooms where she and prominent Civil Rights leaders of the past stood was humbling for our group.
That night, we drove to Selma and walked along the bridge from Selma to Montgomery, the historic site of Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965. Over 600 people walked in a civil rights demonstration to commemorate the shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old church deacon shot and killed by state trooper James Bonard Fowler. Police assaulted them with tear gas, bullwhips, and clubs. The event was widely televised and served as a huge wake-up call for many surrounding the mistreatment of African Americans.
The last stop was the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which many refer to as the Lynching Memorial. As you walk in, there are several statues of enslaved African Americans who were chained up and fighting for their lives. The main memorial features large metal boxes that are the size of a human body, which is completely intentional. These boxes are hanging from the ceiling, but they are still at eye level at the beginning. Each of these boxes is engraved with a county and state, along with one to twenty names honoring people who were lynched in that county. Each one has a date, and some are marked “unknown” because the body could not be identified or there were too many to count. As you move through, the ground begins to slope, but the ceilings remain at the same level, which makes the large boxes hang higher and higher. There is also a large quote on the wall: “For the hanged and beaten, or the shot, drowned, and burned, for the tortured, tormented, and terrorized, for those abandoned by the rule of law, we will remember. With hope because hopelessness is the enemy of justice. With courage because peace requires bravery. With persistence because justice is a constant struggle. With faith because we shall overcome.”
This field trip was heartbreaking and uncomfortable at times. However, these civil rights heroes’ commitment, passion, and sacrifice were inspiring. Our brothers and sisters experienced horrible atrocities at the hands of our ancestors. And although we cannot change the past, it is important to educate ourselves and be part of the change we want to see in the world. We can fight the generational cycle and fight for societal change that provides better opportunities for future generations. In the words of Maya Angelou, “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”
