This video features photos and video footage from our civil rights trip. We dedicate this blog and this video to all of the Foot Soldiers whose names are often forgotten, but played a huge role by participating in the Civil Rights Movement.
Tag Archives: Black
Alabama: The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site
Our visit to the Tuskegee Airmen museum was one of our most unique experiences. Originally an experiment to train civilians as pilots resulted in some of the most successful flight crews. This hangar and field, named after the second president of the Tuskegee Institute, Robert Russa Moton, was the “only primary flight-training facility for Black pilots during World War II.” In 1948, Truman’s Executive Order 9981 desegregated the military. This is a very early event in the Civil Rights Movement, which helped start the larger movement that followed.
The hangar was decorated with two practice planes and dress-up clothes! Our class thoroughly enjoyed putting on the coats and outfits similar to those that were worn. The museum had bios of several people who had served essential roles in the workings of this hangar. The museum featured not only excellent leaders, but also civilians as well like Alice Dungey Gray who was the facility’s only permanent Parachute Rigger. Charles Anderson was one of the instructors and leaders of the flight school. When Eleanor Roosevelt came to see what they were doing and their progress, Anderson piloted the flight she requested. Eleanor Roosevelt supported and advocated for the Tuskegee Airmen from then on.
The museum had rooms like the preparation room where pilots would wait for their solo flight tests as well as study the air force’s planes as well as Germany’s planes to be able to distinguish between the two. Additionally, the tearoom was the first lunchroom that did not segregate between white and black.
A personal anecdote, as I was flipping through the books they had kept that identified the planes of the United States Air force, I found the type of bomber plane my paternal grandpa was a gunner on during World War II. Once I confirmed the type of plane with my father, he told me that the Tuskegee Airmen escorted my grandpa’s flights. Since my grandpa has been deceased for a few years now, it was nice to connect with the Tuskegee Airmen through him and to thank them for protecting him.
Montgomery: Southern Poverty Law Center
Since its creation in 1971, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been committed to finding and eradicating hate groups throughout the United States. Our visit to the SPLC headquarters made it clear that the fight for the equal respect of races, religions, sexual orientation, and more, is ongoing. While the center did show us a video focused on the Civil Rights and featured an exhibit honoring 40 martyrs of the movement, the biggest takeaway was its focus on hate and bigotry post-Civil Rights era.
The most interesting aspect of the center was the “Wall of Tolerance”, which we all signed, making a pledge to fight injustice.
Visit the comprehensive Southern Poverty Law Center website!
Civil Rights Memorial.
Montgomery: Dexter Church Parsonage and Home to Dr. King
Image of Dr. King’s home in Montgomery.
This was perhaps the best tour we had on the trip. Shirley Cherry was our tour guide for seeing the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church parsonage. She was a retired schoolteacher who had more energy and information than all of us combined. Her knowledge of the movement was often firsthand and if not firsthand, than a very close secondhand. She told us about meeting the Mr. Peters, the man who arrested Rosa Parks. He actually came to the house and got a tour.
Before Dr. King came to Dexter, the church had been pastored by Rev. Vernon John. It was he who really got the community ready to bring in someone like Dr. King. He often preached on the future blacks needed to strive for and what was in their way to get there. Some say that Vernon John was to Dr. King like John the Baptist was to Jesus.-class black church. At the time churches were one of the only institutions that blacks could own and they were often owned by upper-class blacks. Dexter Church owned the house (309 Jackson Street) that Dr. King lived in while he pastored the church. The house is located on Centennial Hill, a middle class black neighborhood. Down the street in the biggest house on the block lived Vera Harris, who helped to house many of the freedom riders.
Before going into the King’s old house we saw the place where a bomb had left a hole in the porch. Upon entering the house it was like going back in time. Many of the things in the house were original and it was very easy, with the help of Shirley to envision everything that took place in the house. We got to see where the family would eat, sleep, host guests, and many other things. In the dining room there was a keyboard where we reflected on Dr. Kings statement, “There are no gradations in the image of God. Every man from a treble white to a bass black are significant on God’s keyboard, precisely because everyone is made in the image of God.”
We also spent a long time in the kitchen where Dr. King sat at the kitchen table late one night and contemplated God’s calling for his life. In this moment he found that he need not fear anything of this world and that God had plans for him. I can remember feeling how easy it was to relate to those same fears he expressed and the comfort that God can be in those moments. It was very moving to hear about Dr. King sending home artificial flowers to his wife. For her this was out of the ordinary. Her husband usually sent real flowers, so she called and asked why the change. He answered by saying that he wanted her to have something that would always be there, as if he knew he would soon be killed.
Birmingham: 16th Street Baptist Church
The Civil Rights Movement drew much of its strength from the church. Clergymen became the voices of the movement and the churches served as central meeting places for community organization. Our tour guide at the Civil Rights Institute of Birmingham, Sam Pugh, said “the church was the CNN of that time”. The 16th Street Baptist Church was an instrumental part of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham. In 2006 it was recognized as a national landmark. The church has withstood the test of time and bombing. Today it continues to function as a staple of the Birmingham community.
The land for the 16th St Baptist Church was purchased in 1880. The church was erected soon after, becoming the first church for African Americans in Birmingham. Fearful that the church would promote the mentality of upward mobility among Blacks, angry White citizens had the church to be destroyed. It then took $26,000 to reconstruct the church. Over the first half of the 20th century the church became a staple of black culture in Birmingham.
On September 15, 1963 the church was immortalized when a bomb exploded killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins, Carole Roberston, Denise McNair, and Cynthia Wesley. The bomb went off at 10:22am during Sunday school. More than a couple dozen people were injured. The bomb was placed on the outside of the church in a tunnel at its rear. The girls killed were congregated in a bathroom located in the church’s basement. Ironically, the sermon that Sunday was “A Love That Forgives”. The church and community was forced to pick up the pieces and move forward. All of the church’s stain glass windows on the side where the bomb was planted were blown out; except one. The center window depicting Jesus survived the blast. All that was shattered was Jesus’ face. Supporters of the movement believed this was a sign that said Jesus didn’t condone the act of hatred and sin.
The church was restored, the community rallied, and faith never wavered.
The Foot Soldiers 