by Bill Cunningham 10 hillviews spring/summer 09

by Bill Cunningham 10 hillviews spring/summer 09

For most university students, spring break signals an escape from their education for fun in the sun, beach volleyball and a variety of recreational activities on South Padre Island and other destinations. But for 26 Texas State students, Spring Break 2009 was a life-changing experience an opportunity to deepen their education and see first-hand the roots of struggle that led to the modern United States. The students and five university staff members left San Marcos in vans on March 16 bound for Memphis, Tenn., to retrace the paths of the Freedom Riders and other civil rights activists whose challenges and sacrifices during the 1960s led to changes in American history. The idea for the Freedom Ride spring break came from Jonnie Wilson, assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. Her daughter, a student at Loyola University in Chicago, made the suggestion to her for such a pilgrimage. Originally, students from both universities planned to meet and make the trip together, but the Loyola students were not able to arrange funding, leaving the Texas State contingent to follow the historic path by themselves. Unfortunately, Wilson spent spring break battling a virus and was unable to make the trip herself, but judging from the students reactions, she will have another chance participants are enthusiastic about making it an annual event for others who didn t have the opportunity to learn history firsthand. The thing that got black people through hard times was a belief that they didn t need to know other people in order to care about them and want to help them. That s what it still takes today. We need to remember to worry about each other. Opposite page: Freedom Riders Julia Aaron and David Dennis sit on board an interstate bus as they and 25 others (background and unseen) are escorted by two Mississippi National Guardsmen holding bayonets, on their way from Montgomery, Ala., to Jackson, Miss., May 1, 1961. Photo by Paul Schutzer, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images Trip photos by Christina Zambrano www.txstate.edu hillviews 11

Freedom Riders gather in Birmingham, one of the three major stops on their spring break tour of sites important to the Civil Rights Movement. Memphis: Depot on the Underground Railroad The students arrived in Memphis a haven for the Underground Railroad during the slavery years Monday night and began chronicling their travels on their own blog for fellow students and families to follow. They began with a tour of Slave Haven, the former home of a German-American abolitionist who provided shelter for escaping slaves who knew about the existence of the haven surrounded by magnolia trees. The students stood in the small, cool cellar where runaways received food, water and a place to rest before moving northward. They also learned about the creative coding invented by the railroad s conductors. Coded messages were transmitted by hand signals, drums, quilts displayed on front porches or in the words of African-American spirituals, such as Wade in the Water, which was a warning that trackers with bloodhounds were in the vicinity of safe havens. It s amazing that the slave owners never caught on to the quilts, the students blog posting reported. These women were stitching these quilts as a protest and as a communication. After their tour of Slave Haven, the students gathered in a park overlooking the Mississippi River to discuss their reflections. As one was quoted on the blog, The thing that got black people through hard times was a belief that they didn t need to know other people in order to care about them and want to help them. That s what it still takes today. We need to remember to worry about each other. 12 hillviews spring/summer 09

Students talk over the day s events at a park in Memphis overlooking the Mississippi River. Being college students, their trip to Memphis was not without recreation as they toured the legendary Beale Street blues mecca, which lent its name to a Memphis disc jockey and fledgling blues guitarist who was known as the Beale Street Blues Boy before abbreviating his name to B.B. King. Somber reminder of 1968 Of course, the Memphis sojourn had to include a visit to the site of the former Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. King was staying there while leading peaceful demonstrations on behalf of striking city public works employees. The property now belongs to the Martin Luther King Foundation, which has converted it into the National Civil Rights Museum. While there, the students sat in a facsimile of the bus in which civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man. In it, they heard recorded messages of the driver ordering African-Americans to go to the back of the bus and give up their seats to whites. The most memorable of the displays was also the largest, the students reported re-creations of the rooms King and his associates occupied at the time of the assassination and the room from a nearby motel where his convicted murderer stayed. There was a moment when I looked into the room that Martin Luther King Jr. stayed in when I just couldn t take it and I started crying, one student reported on the blog. Immediately everyone around me hugged me and asked if I was okay. Birmingham: A change was gonna come After the Wednesday morning tour of the museum, the Texas State contingent left for Birmingham, taking a tour of the National Civil Rights Institute, located across the street from the 16th Street Baptist Church where four young girls were killed when a bomb exploded during services one of the most heinous moments of the 1960s. The group also gathered in nearby Kelly Ingram Park, a four-acre municipal park There was a moment when I looked into the room that Martin Luther King Jr. stayed in when I just couldn t take it and I started crying. Immediately everyone around me hugged me and asked if I was okay. www.txstate.edu hillviews 13

that served as a central staging ground for demonstrations during the Civil Rights Movement. It was there in 1963 that Birmingham s segregationist Public Safety Commissioner Eugene Bull Connor confronted the demonstrators with attacking police dogs, high-powered fire hoses and mass arrests. Images from that confrontation, broadcast into living rooms across the country on the evening news, spawned a public outcry and marked a turning point in the entire nation s sometimes skeptical view of the movement. As a result, Birmingham city leaders agreed to end the era of public segregation from the park and other facilities, and the next year brought the passage of President Lyndon B. Johnson s Civil Rights Act of 1964. The park s circular Freedom Walk is flanked by artistic installations depicting the travails of the 1963 demonstrators. The last stop in Birmingham was Mrs. B s Soul Food Cafeteria, also located on historic 16th Street. The food baked chicken, barbecued ribs, fried catfish and fried chicken was described as phenomenal. Leaving Birmingham, the 21st Century Freedom Riders arrived in Atlanta at 10:30 Wednesday night, where tired feet and full stomachs dictated bedtime instead of the normal nighttime discussion. The tour of the home where King grew up proved uplifting to the students, who noted on their reports home, It s great to know that his parents set the tone for his life. Their tour guide also pointed out the differences between the close-knit families of that period and those of today, observations that led to discussions on the students Web posting about what society is lacking in the present day. Our generation doesn t eat at the dinner table as a family, they posted. Our ways of communicating have been reduced to sound bites. Unfortunately, Ebenezer Baptist Church where King preached and where his mother Alberta was shot and killed names such as Auction Street and Marketplace Street, reminding her that those were the sites where human beings were once auctioned as property. And there were lots of Confederate flags displayed on neighborhood lawns, fellow student Kendra Williams added. Home to San Marcos Returning to San Marcos on Friday, the students and staffers continued to reflect on their firsthand history lesson. Mark Barker, graduate residence director of Hornsby and Burleson halls, said, Being Atlanta: Home of the fallen leader Thursday began with a walk down another historic avenue Auburn Street, location of the home where Martin Luther King Jr. was born, Ebenezer Baptist Church where he ministered, the MLK Museum, the oldest barber shop in Atlanta and a soul-food museum. Alexander Williams, a minister who gives tours of Martin Luther King s birth home in Atlanta, told students about his experiences of marching with King and others during the Civil Rights Movement. The Martin Luther King Museum featured a timeline of the slain civil rights leader s life and numerous artifacts of King and his late wife Coretta from the clothing they wore to the room key of the hotel where he was killed, bloggers wrote. His funeral played on a television in another display. While there, the students and staffers met Alexander Williams, a minister and veteran of the Civil Rights Movement who had marched with King. as she played the organ during a service in 1974 was closed for renovation. The students were at least able to see the site, though. In spite of their excitement about the historic places they visited and their realization of the nation s progress against racism, the group still saw reminders of the lingering past that echoed Mississippi writer William Faulkner s famous quote, The past is never dead. It s not even past. Student Miyaka Griffith observed that streets in Deep South cities still bore able to see and touch original artifacts that I couldn t get from a book helped personalize the stories I grew up reading. I now have even more appreciation for what some people had to go through during the Civil Rights Movement. The week will always be one of my greatest memories in college, student Jaisie Stevens said. I had the chance to experience and be in the presence of what I have learned in books but never got to see. I was able to be in the birth home of Martin Luther King and the hotel room where 14 hillviews spring/summer 09

Christopher Delone Norris Jr., left, Larry Morrow and Rena Iglehart listen to a tour guide describe the dynamics of King s old neighborhood at the Martin Luther King National Historic Site in Atlanta. he died. I was able to be in a cellar where slaves would hide and wait for their time of freedom to come. This trip put a lot of my life goals in perspective and will help me on my path to justice for all. The students commitment to learning history at its source also drew recognition from the community. Mayor Susan Narvaiz presented a proclamation to the City Council in May, noting that their journey highlighted the duties of the citizens of a democracy to know their history and personalized this year s Common Experience theme at Texas State University, Civic Responsibility and the Legacy of LBJ, of which the City of San Marcos was a proud co-sponsor. She also noted that these dedicated students and staff members served as exemplary ambassadors of the City of San Marcos and proclaimed May 5 as Civil Rights Trail Day, presenting certificates to all the participants. Creating a tradition The students are excited about the prospects of making their pilgrimage an annual event and perhaps exploring the problems that other minority groups have faced. That prospect is also shared by Jonnie Wilson, who is cited by all the students as an inspiration for her guidance and her service as a role model. As a single mother working three jobs and living in public housing in nearby Lockhart, Wilson was encouraged to attend Texas State by her daughter. In 1993, at age 34, she received her undergraduate degree with a double major in English and history and was honored by the Texas State Alumni Association with the LBJ Outstanding Senior Student Award, which is given annually to one student who has demonstrated and practiced the highest standards of integrity, academic and extracurricular achievements, leadership and involvement at Texas State. She received a Thurgood Marshall Fellowship from the University of Missouri-Columbia and earned a master s degree in African-American history in 1996. She returned to San Marcos and joined the staff at her alma mater. Planning to remain well next spring and go with the group, she would like to expand The week will always be one of my greatest memories in college. This trip put a lot of my life goals in perspective and will help me on my path to justice for all. the trip tradition with incoming students, as well as veterans of this year s journey, and explore other problems still facing minority Americans, such as the ongoing reconstruction of New Orleans from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. It s an exciting prospect for all those involved in creating the alternative spring break and building it into a tradition, one that will be remembered long after the beach volleyball games are forgotten. www.txstate.edu hillviews 15