{"id":28756,"date":"2023-11-02T22:28:10","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T02:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=28756"},"modified":"2023-11-07T14:06:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T19:06:17","slug":"lessons-from-the-civil-rights-trail-challenge-students-to-ask-what-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/lessons-from-the-civil-rights-trail-challenge-students-to-ask-what-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the Civil Rights Trail challenge students to ask, \u2018What now?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Selma, Alabama, between visits to the Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Edmund Pettus Bridge as part of a tour group organized by Furman\u2019s Cothran Center for Vocational Reflection and the Center for Inclusive Communities, Brian Mapakamise \u201925 and Meghan Bov<\/span>e\u0301<\/span> \u201926 strolled down to a colorful mural in <\/span>Foot Soldiers Park<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

During the Civil Rights Trail tour in October 2023, Brian Mapakamise \u201925 and Meghan Bove\u0301 \u201926 met civil rights activist JoAnne Bland in Selma\u2019s Foot Soldiers Park.<\/p><\/div>\n

The mural, commemorating those who took part in 1965\u2019s civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, includes a quote from JoAnne Bland, a foot soldier who had been jailed 13 times by the time she turned 11. Mapakamise and Bov<\/span>e\u0301<\/span> were reading those words \u2013 \u201cIf your piece is missing, the picture isn\u2019t complete\u201d \u2013 when a woman approached them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my quote,\u201d she told them. \u201cI was there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The chance meeting turned in to a spontaneous addition to the itinerary of Furman\u2019s second Civil Rights Trail through Alabama, held during Fall Break in October, when Bland boarded the tour bus. Her firsthand accounts of the civil rights movement helped complete the picture, said Rolyn Rollins, the Cothran Center<\/a>\u2019s program coordinator for student initiatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe students were able to see it wasn\u2019t that long ago,\u201d she said. \u201cThey think of it as being so distant, but when they met somebody who was there, they realized just how close it was.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In Birmingham, the group toured the Dynamite Hill neighborhood, named after repeated bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, and visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute<\/a>. In Montgomery, the Civil Rights Trail led through the National Memorial for Peace and Justice<\/a>, a particularly moving experience for student leader Abijah Leamon \u201924.<\/span><\/p>\n

The memorial commemorates Black victims of racial terror lynchings in the United States with more than 800 steel monuments, one for each county in which a lynching occurred, engraved with dates and names of the victims.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Rohan Halloran \u201924 tours the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt brought up many emotions for me, like anger and disbelief,\u201d said Leamon, an Africana studies and politics and international affairs double major. \u201cBut those emotions motivate me to help others become aware of our history and how it relates to the injustices we experience today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Between tour stops, Leamon, a Bell Tower Scholar<\/a>, led the group of students in dialogue and reflection.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey left historical places, museums and memorials with more questions about what they learned,\u201d said Leamon. \u201cThey reflected on how this connects to their purpose and calling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Civil Rights Memorial Center<\/span><\/a> in Montgomery \u201cwas a perfect place to end our tour,\u201d Rollins said. \u201cWe\u2019d been hearing about a lot of history, and the memorial center brought up some present-day issues that we need to be activists for.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Civil Rights Trail \u201ccompletely embodies\u201d Furman\u2019s mission<\/a> to challenge and support lifelong learners to lead lives of meaning and consequence, said Franklin Ellis, associate dean and director of the Center for Inclusive Communities<\/a> and special assistant to the president for diversity and belonging.<\/span><\/p>\n

The trip \u201cpushes us toward rigorous inquiry, forcing us to ask, \u2018How this was allowed?\u2019 \u2018How did it continue?\u2019 \u2018How can people treat other people that way?\u2019 \u2013 and, possibly, \u2018How can we change things for the better for all?\u2019\u201d Ellis said. \u201cThrough these questions the experience becomes transformative through the deep reflections that we have about how we can combat these systems as well as how we may have and might still be contributing to them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Such reflections are the point of the Cothran Center\u2019s yearly <\/span>Fall Break program<\/span><\/a> \u2013 an Immigration Pilgrimage<\/a> took students through Georgia last year \u2013and part of its overall mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe always bring it back to vocation,\u201d Rollins said. \u201cThe students told me how the experience made them want to be more cognizant of events of the past and the role they play in the present. It helped them shape their thoughts about meaning and purpose in their own lives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, during the group\u2019s final meeting after returning to campus, Rollins encouraged them to act on what they learned in Alabama.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI asked them, \u2018What now?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fall Break trip organized by the Cothran Center for Vocational Reflection and the Center for Inclusive Communities visited historic sites, memorials and museums throughout Alabama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":28759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,97,88,70,32,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africana-studies","category-center-for-interpersonal-connection","category-cothran-center-for-vocational-reflection","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-politics-and-international-affairs","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}