-Laura Brown
Our bus turned into the city of Montgomery on Tuesday morning, and the first thing I saw was the First White House of the Confederacy, perfectly preserved. It was strange.
We started with a great visit to the Civil Rights Memorial Center at the Southern Poverty Law Center. We were so lucky to get to meet and talk with Julian Bond. After spending some time with the exhibits and adding our names to their Wall of Tolerance, we met up with Randall Williams. He worked with the SPLC and helped start Klanwatch--now he runs NewSouth Books (they published Bob Zellner's memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek). He got on the bus with us and took us around Montgomery.
Randall described the city as an intersection of the Civil War and Civil Rights. We rode just a few miles away from the stately Capitol to see some of the churches and homes that were significant to the movement. Some of those neighborhoods were falling apart at the seams. We saw the actual intersection of the Civil War and Civil Rights: the intersection of Jeff Davis Ave. and Rosa Parks Ave. And I thought, this cannot be real. The First White House of the Confederacy was pristine. The Holt Street Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King addressed the black community in Montgomery at the start of the bus boycotts, was overgrown and boarded up.
All of this found its way into our conversation at dinner. Randall organized an excellent meal with a number of guests who were willing to sit with us and talk about their lives and their work. Two of the students and I sat with two of our guests: Nelson Malden, MLK's barber who has lived in Montgomery since 1952 (and still cuts hair here today), and Suzanne La Rosa, a New York native who runs NewSouth Books with Randall. We heard some great stories about MLK in Montgomery, but the conversation eventually turned to just how unsettled we were to see that, five decades after the height of the movement, the dream of equality and freedom does not seem to have been realized for many in the area. Nelson and Suzanne told us about what has essentially amounted to a resegregation of Montgomery schools and vast educational disparities.
This conversation was not like the discussions the students have had in class for the past two months. It was nothing like the material that they read and learned. But it was the best example of what this class and this trip have been about. If we learn civil rights history, if we study the movement as a sustained argument, if we interpret and analyze its texts--all to the good. But what are we supposed to do with that history? All too often, the Civil Rights Movement is taught as something that had a start date and an end date. It happened, it's over, the battles have been fought and won. Rosa Parks didn't give up her seat, students sat-in, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream--and because of that we are all equal. But what we’ve been hearing over and over again, from each person we meet on this trip, is that the movement continues. It never ended.
Montgomery made that abundantly clear. If we learn this history, we must learn it as incomplete and ongoing. Then, on Wednesday, we arrived in Selma. We met a group of people who are part of the ongoing history of the movement. The Freedom Foundation is working hard to integrate Selma and create opportunities for the black community. They train volunteers in nonviolence. They run a theatre program for kids, using space in the only integrated church in the city while they build their own center. Visit their website: freedomfoundation.org (they explain their work better than I can summarize it here). They are a modern day civil rights organization, and I was floored by their commitment. I felt a little defeated after our visit to Montgomery, but the individuals at the Freedom Foundation reminded me that the moral arc of the universe does bend toward justice. They host alternative spring break programs for college students; I hope that next year some of us can return.
Our bus turned into the city of Montgomery on Tuesday morning, and the first thing I saw was the First White House of the Confederacy, perfectly preserved. It was strange.
We started with a great visit to the Civil Rights Memorial Center at the Southern Poverty Law Center. We were so lucky to get to meet and talk with Julian Bond. After spending some time with the exhibits and adding our names to their Wall of Tolerance, we met up with Randall Williams. He worked with the SPLC and helped start Klanwatch--now he runs NewSouth Books (they published Bob Zellner's memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek). He got on the bus with us and took us around Montgomery.
Randall described the city as an intersection of the Civil War and Civil Rights. We rode just a few miles away from the stately Capitol to see some of the churches and homes that were significant to the movement. Some of those neighborhoods were falling apart at the seams. We saw the actual intersection of the Civil War and Civil Rights: the intersection of Jeff Davis Ave. and Rosa Parks Ave. And I thought, this cannot be real. The First White House of the Confederacy was pristine. The Holt Street Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King addressed the black community in Montgomery at the start of the bus boycotts, was overgrown and boarded up.
All of this found its way into our conversation at dinner. Randall organized an excellent meal with a number of guests who were willing to sit with us and talk about their lives and their work. Two of the students and I sat with two of our guests: Nelson Malden, MLK's barber who has lived in Montgomery since 1952 (and still cuts hair here today), and Suzanne La Rosa, a New York native who runs NewSouth Books with Randall. We heard some great stories about MLK in Montgomery, but the conversation eventually turned to just how unsettled we were to see that, five decades after the height of the movement, the dream of equality and freedom does not seem to have been realized for many in the area. Nelson and Suzanne told us about what has essentially amounted to a resegregation of Montgomery schools and vast educational disparities.
This conversation was not like the discussions the students have had in class for the past two months. It was nothing like the material that they read and learned. But it was the best example of what this class and this trip have been about. If we learn civil rights history, if we study the movement as a sustained argument, if we interpret and analyze its texts--all to the good. But what are we supposed to do with that history? All too often, the Civil Rights Movement is taught as something that had a start date and an end date. It happened, it's over, the battles have been fought and won. Rosa Parks didn't give up her seat, students sat-in, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream--and because of that we are all equal. But what we’ve been hearing over and over again, from each person we meet on this trip, is that the movement continues. It never ended.
Montgomery made that abundantly clear. If we learn this history, we must learn it as incomplete and ongoing. Then, on Wednesday, we arrived in Selma. We met a group of people who are part of the ongoing history of the movement. The Freedom Foundation is working hard to integrate Selma and create opportunities for the black community. They train volunteers in nonviolence. They run a theatre program for kids, using space in the only integrated church in the city while they build their own center. Visit their website: freedomfoundation.org (they explain their work better than I can summarize it here). They are a modern day civil rights organization, and I was floored by their commitment. I felt a little defeated after our visit to Montgomery, but the individuals at the Freedom Foundation reminded me that the moral arc of the universe does bend toward justice. They host alternative spring break programs for college students; I hope that next year some of us can return.