Selma to Montgomery Interpretive Center
During our second day in Montgomery, our visit to the Selma to Montgomery Interpretive center was incredibly moving to me through the film that we watched as well as the way that our group met the gentleman whose picture was in the museum from where he participated in the march to Montgomery was another moment in our trip that really touched me emotionally through his testimony about what he personally risked his life to obtain.
While the museum was incredibly moving, I found myself incredibly distracted by Dr. Smith’s testimony about his experience in the Vietnam War, where he and his comrades were fighting for their country, but denied the right to vote. There is a Langston Hughes poem entitled “Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too?”, which kept running through my mind as I listened to what Dr. Smith had to say about this experience. I’m going to attach a copy of this when we get to where I can post it with my post.
The walking tour downtown to the original slave market from Montgomery’s early days as well as to the Dexter Street Baptist Church, which Dr. Martin Luther King was the pastor at and the Alabama state capital building was an amazing experience, which brought many controversial items, such as the Confederate memorial and the statue of
Jefferson Davis, to the attention of our group, as well as many interesting conversations, which I will allow my peers to bring up if they wish to because I do not feel comfortable discussing some of their discussions.
Will V-Day be Me Day too? written by Langston Hughes
Over There,
World War II.Dear Fellow Americans,
I write this letter
Hoping times will be better
When this war
Is through.
I’m a Tan-skinned Yank
Driving a tank.
I ask, WILL V-DAY
BE ME-DAY, TOO?I wear a U. S. uniform.
I’ve done the enemy much harm,
I’ve driven back
The Germans and the Japs,
From Burma to the Rhine.
On every battle line,
I’ve dropped defeat
Into the Fascists’ laps.I am a Negro American
Out to defend my land
Army, Navy, Air Corps–
I am there.
I take munitions through,
I fight–or stevedore, too.
I face death the same as you do
Everywhere.I’ve seen my buddy lying
Where he fell.
I’ve watched him dying
I promised him that I would try
To make our land a land
Where his son could be a man–
And there’d be no Jim Crow birds
Left in our sky.So this is what I want to know:
When we see Victory’s glow,
Will you still let old Jim Crow
Hold me back?
When all those foreign folks who’ve waited–
Italians, Chinese, Danes–are liberated.
Will I still be ill-fated
Because I’m black?Here in my own, my native land,
Will the Jim Crow laws still stand?
Will Dixie lynch me still
When I return?
Or will you comrades in arms
From the factories and the farms,
Have learned what this war
Was fought for us to learn?When I take off my uniform,
Will I be safe from harm–
Or will you do me
As the Germans did the Jews?
When I’ve helped this world to save,
Shall I still be color’s slave?
Or will Victory change
Your antiquated views?You can’t say I didn’t fight
To smash the Fascists’ might.
You can’t say I wasn’t with you
in each battle.
As a soldier, and a friend.
When this war comes to an end,
Will you herd me in a Jim Crow car
Like cattle?Or will you stand up like a man
At home and take your stand
For Democracy?
That’s all I ask of you.
When we lay the guns away
To celebrate
Our Victory Day
WILL V-DAY BE ME-DAY, TOO?
That’s what I want to know.Sincerely,
GI Joe.