Social Stratification in the Deep South

Today has been quite an experience for me through getting used to not only being with a new group of people who are sharing this experience with me, but also from the perspective of being an “outsider” to the WFU learning community. The trip down was a nice way to get to meet everyone on the trip and to begin the diverse backgrounds in which we have all been raised in to bring our personal experiences to this class as well as the different atmosphere that we are entering.

Hearing the student reports about the 16th Street Baptist Church on Youth Sunday which resulted in the death of 4 innocent young girls was very upsetting to me because these deaths are what I consider to be very petty in the fact that these issues that were addressed through the Civil Rights movement.

I presented a brief description of the Children’s March, which took place during the Birmingham campaign in 1963 before we watched a documentary about the conditions of the Children’s March as, well as the film Fried Green Tomatoes, which we were also able to experience through eating at the original Whistle Stop restaurant while also experiencing part of the film by crossing the train tracks while 2 trains were getting ready to cross our paths.

Despite the day being a very long journey from Winston-Salem to Birmingham with three brief stops for use of the facilities as well as a very greasy/tasty lunch at The Varsity in Atlanta, everyone was very excited to be on the trip and getting everything under way after the building anticipation for this trip!

This is going to be an amazing class and I’m really excited to meet all of the participants!