Montgomery-Selma Civil Rights Tour 2010

Whoa! Today was an awesome and amazing day; just a roller coaster of emotions. The day started in Montgomery, Alabama where we visited the Greyhound Station where the Freedom Riders rode to, to show there strong stand against the racist time period they were in. When the riders arrived at the bus station they were met with strong opposition and were brutally beaten, one of the survivors of this attack was John Lewis. After we left there we headed to the home of Dr. King, while he was pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. There were some items in the house that were actually in the house when Dr. King was living there with his family. One specific and heart-touching moment to me was when our group stood in the kitchen of the King home and watched as our tour guide acted out the events of the famous night when Dr. King has his great "Epiphany". To me it really showed Dr. King at maybe his most vulnerable point. We don't like to see our leaders weak, it makes us give up hope sometimes if we see them so shaken up. But Dr. King never gave made it seem like he was giving up, to me it just seemed like a "regrouping" of his thoughts. After that night, Dr. King was fearless in the face of danger. After the house we were off to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where King preached from 1954-1960. The church was very large and the inside was beautiful. The pews in the church were the original pews from when Dr. King was there. Oh yea, probably one of the funniest things today was when I learned that Rev. Vernon Johns (the preacher at Dexter Avenue before King) was the man who gave the infamous funeral speech. He said, "He lived like a dog, he died like a dog. Undertaker take charge of the body"! Whoa imagine has stunned that audience was. After we left the church we were off the Selma! While in Selma we visited the National Voting Rights Museum and we saw the many images and heard the stories surrounding the Bloody Sunday incident that took place on March 7. The story that our tour guide told us was so heart-wrenching and it almost seems hard to believe that people were beaten that horribly. No one died on Bloody Sunday, but 16 were injured. One of the main motivators for this march was the shooting that lead to the death of Jimmie Jackson by a state trooper. The marchers on Bloody Sunday were planning to to peacefully march to Montgomery, but were met by a strong state trooper line on the other side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The marchers were sprayed with tear gas and beaten, some nearly to death. But what has to be my most favorite part of today and possibly this whole trip was the simulation that our group went through to help us better understand the struggles that the slaves endured as they were being transported to the New World. I can honestly say that, that experience opened my eyes to a totally different way of thinking and viewing Black History. The feeling I felt today was a feeling that you cannot get by reading a book or listening to a Black History tape. It was a scary, depressing, emotional, degrading, heart-pounding feeling all rolled up in one. I truly believe that everyone; people of all races, nationalities, and colores should go through this simulation at some point in their lives. That was the first time in my life I had every been called a n*****, and although that derogatory term had never been used to harm me, the pain still struck my heart. I felt helpless, insulted, and inferior. The idea that the slaves were packed so tightly in basements and on the cargo ships was just a horrible thought. I mean people were using the restroom beside each other and some people had to ride to the New World with dead friends, family members, or just a fellow African laying right beside them. Horrifying screams were heard all throughout the ship as women and some children were being raped or some people being thrown overboard. This event is one that I will never forget and that feeling will stay with me as a constant reminder of how difficult their struggle was, and I should never take advantage of the liberties and freedoms that I have today because of the many people that have been placed before me; from 1619 to the present.