"Sweet Auburn" and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights

Students at Dr. King’s Birth Home in Atlanta

In Maryland, if a white woman had a black man's child, no matter what the circumstance, she would go to jail.
-Valerie

One exhibition that struck me today was the Coretta Scott King and Dr. King timeline in the visitor center of Ebenezer Church. I have learned a lot about Dr. King through the years, but I had never known so much about his wife, who was a very big activist herself, not just for civil rights, but for women’s rights. I liked that each of their timelines were on their own side if the room: it is important to remember Dr. King and Mrs. King for their own legacies, as well as together. This ability to see both of their timelines separately and together is what made this room extremely interesting. We also got to attend church today and I would like to conclude with one phrase that I remembered during the Pastor’s sermon: “If your neighbor gets blessed, don’t be jealous. It just means God is in the neighborhood”

-Aaron Sterling

the most powerful exhibition for me was the simulation of the counter where the greensboro sit in took place. there were four seats placed at a countertop. you were told to place your hands down, put the provided earphones on, and close your eyes. i was immediately shaken by the words of an old man telling me to be brave and that it was my first time [doing the sit in]. I felt my chair being kicked. the sound quality was so good that you could hear white men whispering in your ear that they wanted you to die. you could hear quarrels going on behind you. i started quivering and almost crying. it’s easy to tell yourself that you could be brave in every situation. but being in that position i felt genuinely scared for my life in a way i couldn’t imagine literally encountering. 

-Hope

Two people from the civil rights movement that I hadn’t heard very much about before were Dorothy Height and Bayard Rustin. They each had panels on the wall in the exhibit room dedicated to the March on Washington. Rustin was the original organizer of the march, but, as one of the people who works at the museum was saying, couldn’t be the face of the movement because he was openly gay. Height was also very involved in organizing the event, but she and all other women weren’t allowed to give keynote speeches. Following those two panels was a photograph of the “Big Six,” the group of organizers (including Dr. King) who are credited with making the March on Washington happen. It’s interesting to think about the inequalities that existed within the movement and also what choices had to be made in order for the movement as a whole to be more palatable and successful.

-Talia

Today, I learned about Claudette Colvin the woman who got arrested before Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat on the bus. Her story really stood out to me because I was never taught about her before. What really struck me the most was the reasoning why we haven’t heard of her. On the wall it stated that her mother told her to let Rosa be the face of that movement because Rosa was of a lighter skin tone, an actual adult, while Claudette was a teen mum and her mum was worried this would take away from the movement. I was startled by this. It seemed to me that Claudette’s mother was right in a way, because often when we are trying to do good people nitpick at the bad things. However, the whole point of the civil rights movement was acceptance. 

-Ise  

An exhibition that struck me was the Segregationist exhibition. In this exhibit, I got to look into some of the minds of some the white southern state leaders. I was particularly interested in James Eastland, senator of Mississippi. He said: “segregation is not discrimination... it is the law of nature, it is the law of god, that every race has both the right and duty to perpetuate itself.” This made me think differently about people like him. I started to realize that they thought they were fighting for a noble cause. They truly believed that segregation would lead to prosperity for both races involved; that made me think about how people are raised and how that influences their ignorance. I started to see that some of these segregationists weren’t consciously racist.

-Chima

I seen this story about Bayard Rustin who was a major player in the civil rights movement but he’s pretty unknown because he was an open gay man and people wanted to keep that out of the media. It just reminds me about how I think the LGBT are more accepted in the white community than in the black community. For a race to be subjected to all the segregation degradation and hate, you’d think they’d be the most accepting to anyone who feels like that but it’s not the case and it’s confusing to me.

-Keon

When reading about Claudette Colvin and seeing that at the age of 15 she was the first person to tell the bus operator no when asked to give up her seat. She was dragged off the bus and arrested, but there was no coverage there was no outrage yet when Rosa Parks did the same thing she because a face of the movement. Colvin was deciding if she should speak out about her experience because she had done something similar to Rosa much before, but was stopped by her mother because Rosa was loved by the world and because she was lighter skinned and easier to like then the dark skinned Colvin. 

A person from the movement that I never heard of was the Viola Liuzzo. A white mother of five from Detroit decided to go help the civil rights effort in Detroit. She was driving in car on a public highway with a black male as a passenger and was stopped by the KKK. The KKK opened fire on the car killing Viola. The passengers survived but by only playing dead when they checked the car. 

-Delayn

Religion has always been confusing for me. So going to church today was something I looked forward to. Although I don’t think I believe in God the message the pastor had for us was still amazing. He talked about standing with the message Dr. King had for us in all the struggles in the world today. He talked with so much passion and love for everyone and every issue that it really drew me in.

-Jack

What I took away from today was how black ppl were not the only one’s fighting for the cause. When I watched the freedom fighters video, there was this white man that got beat for the cause and he said, “We would die for the cause.’’ 

-Mikaela  

I'm starting to understand how the civil right activists felt when they were in a war for desegregation on the freedom bus all day not knowing what's going to happen next. No matter how tired they were they tried not to take breaks to proceed their goal. Being criticized harshly by others about what they carry or how they look, trying to explain why they do these things but they never wanna hear without pushing back forcefully and talking forcefully. 

No matter what happened they kept going through the tears and pain that's unbearable to swallow, but they have to always keep their composure. When you walk around with a look of help and tears on your face, but everyone just looks and turns away with disgust. When you trying to talk and the opposite side talks over you and not a word you say is never heard.

Just want to be themselves but they have to keep a certain "reputation," but in the end after all that marching their voices and now finally our voices are heard.

-Shakira

I have been thinking a lot the power of and hate. The power of love and forgiveness is the only way to create lasting, positive change. The civil rights movement had participants from every color and creed and that is part of why it was successful. People of all races who chose love over hate, people put themselves in danger because they believed in humanity. They believed that the system and the culture could change. Sometimes I wonder if I would’ve had the courage to fight for equality. Sitting at the lunch counter, being screamed at and beaten. A stranger’s words can only do so much to hurt me, but to invade my physical privacy, to try to pry away ownership of my own body, I do not know if I could have stayed in control. The amount of willpower it must have taken to stand up, even by sitting down, is unimaginable to me. It takes guts, it takes gall, it takes love, love of one’s self, and love of all others to do what those people did. I will be forever grateful for their sacrifices and hopefully one day I will find the strength to continue their fight.

-Ry

Today I learned about Johnne Mae Chappell. She was a 35 year old wife with 10 children. She was searching a road hoping to find a missing wallet. Four white men then approached her in a car. The men who approached her wore out simply looking for a black person. The man on the passenger side pulled out a gun and shot. She died by a single bullet. Her killers went unpunished. This made me very sad because I felt as though that didn’t have to happen. And the ones who where invoked should have gotten consequences. 

-Shaniah

Legacy. The legacy of the individuals who gave their lives to fight for equality and peace for African Americans must live on. So many brilliant and devoted men and women, both black and white, were met with brutality and even death for fighting what was right. It is now 2020 and indeed, many great accomplishments have been achieved by those before us but there is still more to be done. There are still people with prejudices and negative ideals set for people of color.  We as the new generation must revitalize the devotion and power that our people once had into creating a more peaceful country, one where anyone regardless of the color of their skin, is accepted, understood and always greeted with kindness , love and respect. 

-Domiontaye

I learned about Jo Ann Robinson, the president of the Women’s Political Movement, and Dorothy Heights, the president of the National Council of Negro Women. My teachers have showed me that in countless movements around the world men are usually at the front leading the group. They’ve also taught me that it’s impossible that there were no female heroes. The fact that they weren’t able to have a bigger seat at the table, or even allowed to speak at the March on Washington, is baffling. I also related this to the Sandinistas Movement in Nicaragua, which was going on around the same time, to see the similarities of the hardships women had to face within the group they were working with. Height’s quote, “women became much more aware and much more aggressive in facing up to sexism in our dealing with the male leadership in the movement,” made me think of Pastor Warnock’s quote, “I want to keep on standing because I know who’s standing with me.” I’m not exactly sure what my take away from both of these quotes combined is (in some ways they seem to contradict, but in others they seem to stand together), but they’re something that I want to keep with me throughout the trip and beyond.

-Becky

Today, something that greatly moved me was the interactive exhibit at the International Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta. There was a replica of a typical lunch counter of the time of the civil rights movement. We were then instructed to put headphones on, we began to hear vulgar, derogatory terms that would have been used towards protesters. There were even death threats and sounds of physical abuses such as glass breaking and people being hit. This showed me on a deeper level that there were struggles and abuses that those before us endured in order for us to live the way we do today. 

-Kimberly

Today, we first attended the early service at the Second Ebenezer Baptist Church. Being Baptist myself, I knew the order that service usually follows and knew about the sermon that followed musical selections. But something that was different for me was the fact that the message from the sermon and service was a lot clearer to me than in past services. One important thing that Revered Warnock said was that MLK had an “immortality of influence”. MLK pushed for those who wished to fight for justice speak for peace, inclusivity, and fair power distribution. Influence and legacy to me go hand in hand, as these are ideals that should continue to be upheld in society as it started during the Civil Rights Movement.

-Lexi

A couple of things over the course of the day struck me. I felt really lucky be at the service at Ebenezer Baptist Church. I could feel some of the joy of song and the sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself that the Church offered as well as hear what I thought was a really powerful sermon. The sermon spoke to the values of MLK that are too often covered up and the responsibilities we have to stand up for the poor and powerless, for peace, for the planet, and for promise.

When we visited the birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, one thing that our tour guide mentioned was the family's emphasis on black ownership and property stretching back a couple of generations. They encouraged other members of the community to purchase their own property as well. It seems like it was a way to build some wealth, security, and control in a country that has tried   for so long to deny all of those things to African-Americans.

At the museum I read about a woman named Diane Nash. She went to jail for encouraging young people to take nonviolent direct action rather than taking a plea deal when she was four months pregnant! She said "this will be a black baby born in Mississippi and thus wherever he is born he will be in prison... if I go to jail now it may help hasten that day when my child and all children will be free." It's incredible to me that someone chooses the conditions of a Mississippi jail during pregnancy out of a dedication to future freedoms and can turn it into a statement like that.

-Isabel

Theatrice Bailey had to clean up Martin Luther King’s blood from the motel balcony and James Ray eventually was convicted for killing him. Jimmie Lee Jackson was only protecting his mom and his grandfather during the Selma to Montgomery March and he was beaten for protecting his loved ones. The premise of this realization is when someone does something good the repercussion is bad and there’s always has to be someone to clean up the mess.

-Amber