While the Oprah Winfrey Show graced the airway for one last good time, the CRE crew explored Montgomery and Selma, Alabama. In Montgomery we went to the Civil Rights Memorial. It has been organized by the Southern Poverty Law Center. What a moving experience. They honor people who have died in the struggle out front with a monument (created by the same person who created the Vietnam Memorial in DC whose name is escaping me right now. . .). Water runs over the table where names of 40 martyrs have been etched. The kids were able to run their fingers through the water and over these names. It was very touching. Inside of the memorial center there is something called the Wall of Tolerance (several pictures from some of the kids names were blogged earlier). We had to take a pledge to stand up for justice in order to have our names flash on the wall. There the names will continue to rotate through the 600,000 other names forever as a testament and a promise from all of us. Yet again--you might find that the theme of the day is "moving"
After Montgomery will traveled to Selma where we took a tour of the National Voting Rights Museum. We took a tour of the museum which is under a bit of construction, but the treat from this place was our tour guide. He told us about Selma's significance in the Civil Rights Movement with regards to Voting Rights. He is a native of Selma. And although he didn't walk across the Edmund Pettus bridge on what came to be known as Bloody Sunday , he was active in the community to fight for rights at a very young age. He was jailed twice as a child for being part of a demonstration. Sam was inspirational.
After meeting Sam we walked across the bridge just as Selma residents did in their march towards freedom.
Tonight we just arrived in Birmingham. We are going to go to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute tomorrow.
More to come.
Toni Graves Williamson
What an amazing experience you all are having. It is really cool to see you all in these very familiar looking places (the bridge, the church). This is especially powerful on the anniversary of the start of the civil war, which was so violent that we still feel the impact today. The fact that the civil rights movement was based on non-violence makes it even more powerful and unbelievable what people went through.
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