This morning we went to the Civil Rights Memorial which is attached to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery. We watched a movie on the purpose of the SPLC and walked around the museum. This is the only museum/memorial honoring the Civil Rights Movement in the entire country! I read over several stories about people who had been killed for deeds such as encouraging blacks to register to vote, but what stunned me was when I read about 5 individuals who have been killed in the last 10 years due to hate crimes. One man was killed after the September 11 attacks because he was wearing a turbin and “looked” like a terrorist. Another man was shot because of his sexual orientation. One young girl was killed because of her skin color and since she was MMR, she was an “easy target.” The SPLC addresses all of these issues and more; I had no idea how powerful it is. For example, the organization sued the United Klansmen of America a few years back and as a result, they had to give up their organization to the mother of a young African-American who was murdered. I would love to work for an organization so committed to social equity and the erasure of discrimination.

Afterwards, we drove an hour to Selma to see the bridge and the church where the famous walk began. The walk from Selma to Montgomery began at a church that MLK preached at, right beside the Carter Housing Projects. The area was obviously very poor and it was difficult for me to imagine living in that town today. Just at a glance, the town appeared to be exactly the same as it had been fifty years ago! We heard some stats on the bus, and proportionately this town has more crime and unemployment than even Montgomery and Birmingham, which are already way above the national average. This would make sense because crime seems to rise with poverty, and the town’s economy does not seem to be booming. The man at the SPLC said that these towns could make a lot of money in tourism if they made more memorials. I wonder if they are resisting that because of continuing racism or denial?

In our time with Andrew at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Civil Rights Memorial, our group seemed to be stricken with multiple emotions as a reaction to the memorial. I was amazed by the beautiful tribute to the many people who lost their lives in the struggle to obtain equal rights for not only African Americans in the south, but the people who have died as a result of hatred for what is not known or understood. I was seriously brought to tears when I was reading the stories of the people who have been murdered in cold blood since the Civil Rights movement because they were different from their killers and that was the only reason that these people were murdered.

The attention that was drawn to groups not only in the United States, such as the victims of the Darfur genocide and the Holocaust, is something that we all know about, but that many of us tend to overlook in the question of equal rights for all people. America is known as the land of the free and home of the brave, but if we, as a nation, are unable to secure what we consider to be basic freedoms forty years after the civil rights movement and after we have had so much legislation to go through to secure these rights, then what hope do we have to show the rest of the world?

The walk across the bridge in Selma was very surreal to me to know the pain and suffering that took place at the foot of the bridge where so many people were just trying to get to their right to vote. Something that Dr. Hattery brought up that I have continued to think about was the fact that the people that organized in Selma were not just wanting the right to vote, but that these were impoverished people who needed to have a voice because there were no politicians standing up for their rights.