Today was an amazing day. The students were able to experience significant places that represented struggles for power and the passion and beliefs that challenged people to act.
In Birmingham we visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute which is an amazing museum, it is so well done. The students were able to walk through displays of segregation, the movement for equality, the vision of freedom, the right to vote, and experience the enormity of what freedom means.
We walked across the street to the 16th Avenue Church which was a very powerful moment for students to consider the 4 young girls who were killed there...to sit in the church, to look at the beautiful windows was inspiring.
We ate lunch at Kelly Ingram Park the site of much of the violence of Birmingham, it was peaceful and a beautiful day. The students were able to sit where history was made and make their own history of this adventure they are on.
We traveled 2 hours to Selma...the site of the beginning of the March to Montgomery for voting rights. We walked the Edmund Pettis Bridge the origin of the March...it was awesome to cross this historic bridge and think that close to 50 years ago equality was fought for.
We drove the 54 miles they walked...
Stopped along the way to see the campsites, hear the stories, and experience the passion of belief.
It was powerful.
We culminated our drive at the base of the Capitol building where those people who marched did to being Governor Wallace there grievances over voting rights.
We walked to a beautiful memorial for those who lost their lives during the Civil Rights movement. The memorial was designed by the same lady who weighed the Vietnam War Memorial. A beautiful black stone fountain with names etched with water slowly passes over...
With the words of Dr. King quoting the book of Joel, "...until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty steam."
Tomorrow is Rosa Parks Museum and the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and on to Atlanta...
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