|Our group at the Civil Rights Museum|
in Memphis, TN.
|Shortly before we crossed the Edmund|
Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL.
|Freedom Riders arrested for challenging|
segregated interstate travel in 1961.
(courtesy of 1961freedomriders.org)
It may seem insignificant. Who cares if twelve students can travel together? I hope, however, that what we learned along the way allows us to place our trip within the context of history. Integrated travel, work, and play were potentially grave undertakings in the 1950s and ‘60s. The firebombing of the Freedom Riders’ bus in Alabama in 1961, the murder of three civil rights activists in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964, and Emmett Till’s brutal murder in 1955 are only a handful of the countless examples of hateful violence wielded to maintain the status quo. So, maybe we should consider our travels as a distinct historical moment. Are things perfect? No. Civil rights is, visibly, an ongoing struggle—particularly with the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, but I hope the people who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, only fifty years before we did, can find some solace in the fact that a group of twelve students could peacefully, happily walk in their footsteps. After all, real progress will come through cooperation, mutual respect, and, perhaps most importantly, friendship.