Tuesday May 29, 2007

Today was an enjoyable day with early start. We started the day by walking down to the in Downtown Montgomery. The day started by going to the Civil Rights Movement Memorial. The Memorial has a great monument out front with a beautiful quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. The memorial is the only one in the nation devoted to the actual movement itself, and not one specific person involved in the movement. Our guide, Andrew was very helpful and lead a great discussion of some of the pressing issues on the importance of the memorial and how it’s important to learn about all of the people that died for the cause. The origin behind why the memorial was built is very interesting. It was sparked because of an innocent nineteen year old Black male, Micheal Donald was murdered by Klansmen in Alabama. Andrew brought up a very interesting discussion on current hate groups that exist in the Southern states across the US. We examined the prevalence of groups like, The League of the South in states like North Carolina.

After we left the memorial center, we headed for Selma, Alabama. It was a great experience to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the same Bridge where the marches were held from Selma to Montgomery. I felt really powerful being able to have that experience of crossing such an infamous bridge. It if weren’t for the tragic events that Blacks and Whites endured that year then there wouldn’t have been a Voting Rights Act of 1965. The experience was memorable and I will never forget it. Also, in Selma we were in the historic area which includes the George Washington Carver Housing Project. Walking through the housing project, I wanted to be able to change the conditions myself. I do not understand why government housing known as Projects are always in such bad conditions. I can definitely see organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center stepping in to revamp housing projects of the deep South. It was also just such a pleasure to walk down the sidewalk in Selma, Alabama, a very historical city that I have wanted to visit for years.

The ride to Bay St. Louis today was filled with student reports and films. I really enjoyed learning the statistics of Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma especially about the racial compositions of the cities. Spike Lee does great work and I enjoyed watching his documentary, Four Little Girls. The documentary included information that I had learned from previous student reports. But, I thought that the documentary did a great job of presenting the feelings and concerns of family members of the four young women killed because of hate and racism. We also watched a story presented by CNN on the damaging effects Katrina had on Bay St. Louis, MS. I was astounded to hear the facts about insurance companies and there distinctive differences between flood and wind damage. I also felt very uneducated in that I didn’t know the impact Katrina made on areas like Bay St. Louis in Mississippi.