Civil Rights Trip Brings Students Face to Face With History

This was the second time the trip has been offered as a Global Education travel program. The trip, which happens every other year, is open to all Upper School students and gives them an unmatched opportunity to experience Civil Rights history firsthand. “There’s something about experiencing it yourself, actually being at a historic site, that makes it more real than reading can,” said Bagley.

The trip’s itinerary challenges participants to grapple with the long history of violence and discrimination against Black people in the United States. In Montgomery, students visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which honors over 4,400 Black people killed in lynchings between 1877 and 1950, and The Legacy Museum, which traces the history of racial injustice in the United States, from the transatlantic slave trade all the way through present-day mass incarceration. Some other stops on the trip were the Rosa Parks Museum, the Freedom Rides Museum, the Civil Rights Memorial Center, the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute, memorials including the Rev. James Reeb Memorial Plaque, Kelly Ingram Park, and the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr.  In Selma, the group walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where Civil Rights activists were brutally beaten during their first march for voting rights in 1965. 

Throughout the trip, students reflected on their experience in journal entries. Here are a few of their takeaways:

“It’s sometimes hard to picture and fully realize the violence against the Civil Rights Movement. The museums and monuments we visited made me really connect with that history and that struggle, more so than in class. I don’t say that to imply that history courses don’t cover the material well; it’s just that numbers of lynched persons don’t feel as big as huge monuments dedicated to them do, and that textbooks saying how hard voting ‘literacy’ tests were doesn’t impact you the same compared to trying to actually answer one. I highly recommend this trip to all Rivers students.”

“For me, the Civil Rights trip was eye-opening. Both of my parents are African American, and before going on the Civil Rights trip, I hadn’t had the chance to learn much about my ancestors or truly understand what they endured beyond what I learned in history classes or during Black History Month. On the trip, I not only saw firsthand what people had experienced, but I could also put myself in their shoes and see from their perspective what they had to witness being Black during that time. I learned that many lives were left unseen, and people were lynched without anyone knowing their names, because nobody cared to look into it. This struck me because it’s hard to believe that people back then didn’t care about anything about you—they only saw you based on your skin color. I also learned about children, like 16-year-old John Reese, who were killed for doing things like dancing in a diner. They hadn’t done anything wrong—just having fun—and even the smallest, simplest actions could lead to tragedy. As a teenager, it’s hard to believe that such things could happen to someone so young, just because of their skin color.” 

“[At the National Memorial for Peace and Justice,] when you walk through the part with the pillars, the true scale of what happened and how many people died really hits you. You look around, and all you can see are the pillars with lists of names. As you look around, you can really see the names of every single person who was killed in a recorded lynching, and the scale and magnitude of that is really powerful. ”

“The in-person experience of visiting the memorials of such rich history allowed me to connect with Civil Rights in a way that is simply not possible through a textbook. When we walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where we couldn’t see over the arch, the fear the Bloody Sunday marchers experienced became obvious to me. That moment when we reached the top of the bridge, where we could see the road lying below, I was able to picture what the marchers saw when they realized the attackers were on the other side waiting for them.”

“I learned that during the Civil Rights Movement, many people risked their lives just to fight for equal rights and fairness. I also learned that peaceful protests, like marches and sit-ins, were very powerful in bringing about real change. Visiting the places where these events happened made me realize how hard it was for people to stand up for what was right.”

“One of the sites that struck me the most was the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute right across from the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Not only was the museum amazing and very thoughtful, but the tour guide really had me in awe. Being able to truly hear the experience of an African American living in Selma today was very needed. Not only did she tell us about the untold history, but she also always informed us about the ongoing racism that the museum and so many other Black people continue to face here in Selma.”