-Ahmed Mohamed
Walking into my English 297H class at the beginning of the semester is a bit of a blur. I don't recall my first impressions of everyone but I will surely remember my impressions today. I walked into class only knowing one person and seeing maybe two people around campus. I knew about the week long spring break trip that we would be having but i didn't know what to expect out of the people I would be traveling with and living with for a week. To be completely honest, I was a bit shy at first and I think it is safe to say that we as a class all were.
Yet, as the semester went on we began to break out of our shells but we were still not completely our true selves since we were in a classroom setting. I know I remained a little quite at times or maybe even dosed off in class (Sorry Doc). This would soon change as the trip to the south began to creep up.
As we backed up the bus driven by our very interesting bus driver, Frank, everyone was still a bit shy and rightfully so I mean we didn't hang out outside of class and we barely knew each other.
English 297H is the rhetoric of the civil rights so you could say we know our far share of the civil rights movement. Yet little did we know what we were about to experience. As i sit here writing this blog, I can say without objection that this has been the greatest experience I could have possibly had on a spring break. I think all my classmates would agree that this trip has opened up our eyes to what we have been learning in class all semester. This trip has been incredible and I have experienced more about the civil rights in this one week than I have ever learned by reading or studying the civil rights movement in my entire life.
Now we all know about the incredible movement that was the civil rights, people coming together from the north and south to fight against racial oppression. But the goal of my blog is not to talk about the civil rights movement. My goal is to tell you about the English 297H movement. The movement of complete strangers to incredible friends. Never would I have believed that I would have gotten so close to, not my classmates, but my new friends. To be on a trip like this was truly incredible and to be able to experience this trip together really brought this class together.
A perfect example of this would be what happened today in the Highlander. We were all just hanging out playing tetherball and enjoying the scenery when Dominique lost her ring. It was a a small silver band that was now lost in a field of grass. When everyone found out, not one of us started looking for it, but every single one of us got down and searched the grass for her ring. Now we were in a pretty big field and some would have said it was impossible to find that ring. Since this is a civil rights class I compared this to when the civil rights movement first began and people criticized african americans saying that they will never be equal and find that true freedom.
Obviously a ring is on a smaller scale than civil rights but to us this was something that we thought couldn't be done. No way would we find a ring that small in a field of grass. yet, we all came together like the civil rights activists and started looking for her ring.
Dinner time came and still nothing but we didn't give up and after dinner we went out again to look for her ring and lone and behold we found it. We came together as a group of friends to help out our friend find a lost ring.
This was a minute example of what could happen when people come together to do something that we ourselves did not know if it was possible but we didn’t give up.
To me the greatest part of this trip was not visiting the Lincoln Memorial, it was not visiting greensboro, Atlanta, Montgomery, Selma, or Birmingham. It was none of those. The greatest part of this trip was when we found that ring a celebrated with a group hug. This to me defined my experience on this trip. Becoming friends who care about one another when at first we were complete strangers. This whole trip has taught me that without the unity of the civil rights workers and the resilience, the civil rights movement would not have happened. And I feel like with the unity and friendship that was created on this trip amongst our group has given us motivation that when we come together, regardless of age, color, or background, we can accomplish anything....and we will never give up on the movement.....our movement.
Walking into my English 297H class at the beginning of the semester is a bit of a blur. I don't recall my first impressions of everyone but I will surely remember my impressions today. I walked into class only knowing one person and seeing maybe two people around campus. I knew about the week long spring break trip that we would be having but i didn't know what to expect out of the people I would be traveling with and living with for a week. To be completely honest, I was a bit shy at first and I think it is safe to say that we as a class all were.
Yet, as the semester went on we began to break out of our shells but we were still not completely our true selves since we were in a classroom setting. I know I remained a little quite at times or maybe even dosed off in class (Sorry Doc). This would soon change as the trip to the south began to creep up.
As we backed up the bus driven by our very interesting bus driver, Frank, everyone was still a bit shy and rightfully so I mean we didn't hang out outside of class and we barely knew each other.
English 297H is the rhetoric of the civil rights so you could say we know our far share of the civil rights movement. Yet little did we know what we were about to experience. As i sit here writing this blog, I can say without objection that this has been the greatest experience I could have possibly had on a spring break. I think all my classmates would agree that this trip has opened up our eyes to what we have been learning in class all semester. This trip has been incredible and I have experienced more about the civil rights in this one week than I have ever learned by reading or studying the civil rights movement in my entire life.
Now we all know about the incredible movement that was the civil rights, people coming together from the north and south to fight against racial oppression. But the goal of my blog is not to talk about the civil rights movement. My goal is to tell you about the English 297H movement. The movement of complete strangers to incredible friends. Never would I have believed that I would have gotten so close to, not my classmates, but my new friends. To be on a trip like this was truly incredible and to be able to experience this trip together really brought this class together.
A perfect example of this would be what happened today in the Highlander. We were all just hanging out playing tetherball and enjoying the scenery when Dominique lost her ring. It was a a small silver band that was now lost in a field of grass. When everyone found out, not one of us started looking for it, but every single one of us got down and searched the grass for her ring. Now we were in a pretty big field and some would have said it was impossible to find that ring. Since this is a civil rights class I compared this to when the civil rights movement first began and people criticized african americans saying that they will never be equal and find that true freedom.
Obviously a ring is on a smaller scale than civil rights but to us this was something that we thought couldn't be done. No way would we find a ring that small in a field of grass. yet, we all came together like the civil rights activists and started looking for her ring.
Dinner time came and still nothing but we didn't give up and after dinner we went out again to look for her ring and lone and behold we found it. We came together as a group of friends to help out our friend find a lost ring.
This was a minute example of what could happen when people come together to do something that we ourselves did not know if it was possible but we didn’t give up.
To me the greatest part of this trip was not visiting the Lincoln Memorial, it was not visiting greensboro, Atlanta, Montgomery, Selma, or Birmingham. It was none of those. The greatest part of this trip was when we found that ring a celebrated with a group hug. This to me defined my experience on this trip. Becoming friends who care about one another when at first we were complete strangers. This whole trip has taught me that without the unity of the civil rights workers and the resilience, the civil rights movement would not have happened. And I feel like with the unity and friendship that was created on this trip amongst our group has given us motivation that when we come together, regardless of age, color, or background, we can accomplish anything....and we will never give up on the movement.....our movement.