Understanding Our History: A Civil Rights Journey

Understanding America: A Civil Rights Journey

Helen and I, along with our friends Louise and Matt Myers, spent four days in Birmingham and Montgomery Alabama. We were motivated by a desire to visit the new National Peace and Justice Memorial (Lynching Museum), but we did much more. We want to share some stories from our deeply moving and deeply disturbing experience. We hope that you will be encouraged to go.

Thursday: Birmingham. 

As we walked through the Kelly Ingram Park, I could picture the water hoses, vicious dogs and police clubs that attacked African-American young people.  We remembered how important the Children’s March was to the movement in Birmingham.   A sculpture of two young people bears the inscription, “We ain’t afraid of your jail”. 

 At the 16th St. Baptist Church, we stood in the spot where the bomb was planted by the KKK that took the lives of four beautiful young girls. We learned that one girl’s sister is still alive and that all the perpetrators of this heinous crime were not brought to justice until nearly 40 years later. 

Shortly after, at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute we found ourselves watching a video of life there from 1871 to 1921. As the curtain went up we walked into history but we could not walk out until we walked through. (For some, this will recall the experience at the Holocaust Museum). We walked through slavery, reconstruction, re-enslavement, (a far less well-known phenomenon), Jim Crow, mass incarceration, voter suppression, renewed racism and more.

We have read a lot of history and asked a lot of questions. That is part of why we took this trip in the first place. But actually hearing audio and video stories from a diverse group of Birmingham citizens made us realize even more how deeply racist the attitudes of most people were and how courageous African Americans were, and still are, in the face of deep hatred and violence.

The librarian who manages the museum’s wide array of oral histories told us that some teachers who bring their students to the Institute often just sit on the sidelines rather than actively engaging with their students. Sad to hear that such an important educational resource is not being fully utilized.

Our day ended at coffee with Peggy Sparks, a member of the original board of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Marty’s colleague in the community schools movement; Peggy’s friend Leon Evans joined us. Peggy, a member of the original board of the Institute, explained how the Institute’s planners visited numerous museums during the planning phase; including the Holocaust Museum where they have an ongoing relationship   Leon told us how his mother refused to call her teachers Ma’am. He dislikes the term minority too, because it implies a significant power differential. 

Friday: Montgomery

Montgomery is a riverfront city of nearly 200,000 where history is literally all around you.  We started at the Freedom Riders Museum where we saw the courage of the more than 400 riders, black and white; liberal and conservative; Catholic, Protestant, and Jew.  In addition to again witnessing the brutal acts against the riders, we were reminded of the brilliant organizing work of Diane Nash of the Nashville Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who ensured a continuing flow of riders into the jails of Jackson, Mississippi tying up the criminal justice system and ensuring continuing public attention to the Rider’s mission. Many riders spent time in the Penitentiary at Parchman Farm, a notoriously violent and abusive prison, where some were placed in the maximum security unit on death row, while others were subject to solitary confinement.

After hearing the story of the Freedom Riders, it was time to visit the National Peace and Justice Memorial. We had read about the memorial, its development and opening, but being there was a deep emotional experience that cannot be forgotten. As we walked into the Memorial we faced memorials organized by state and county to the 4,000 people lynched between 1877 and 1950.  The county Memorials, imprinted with the names of the lynching victims and the years of their murders, appear like hanging coffins.

Walking forward, we saw a family who had driven from Atlanta – grandmother, mother and two daughters, huddled around one memorial. They had come to remember their two uncles who were among five people lynched in 1898 in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. They told us their story. I thanked them for sharing. They thanked me for hearing their story.

Moving through the Memorial we felt the individual county memorials gradually rise above us, giving us the sense of people being hung. And we saw the some of the obscene reasons why … Elbert Williams was lynched in Brownsville Tennessee in 1940 for working to register black votes as part of the local NAACP; after a white man attempted o assault Jack Brownlee’s daughter in Oxford Alabama in 1894, Mr. Brownlee was lynched for having the man arrested.  The words of Ida B. Wells rang in our ears, “Our country’s national crime is lynching.”

The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is also part of the Memorial. Located a block from one of the most prominent slave auction spaces in America, the Legacy is  also steps away from an Alabama dock and rail station where tens of thousands of black people were trafficked during the 19th century.  In a different way than the Birmingham Institute, it chronicles in painful detail what we saw in Birmingham -- our history of slavery, re-enslavement, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration.  It is stomach-turning.

Saturday: Montgomery

We began the day at the Parsonage of the Dexter Baptist church where Dr. King and his family lived. An elderly volunteer, who was a member of Ms. King’s women’s group, brought the parsonage to life as she described the black middle-class neighborhood that existed in the 50’s. We saw the dining room where King and his allies planned the Montgomery bus boycott and watched African American members of our tour touch the table. We stood in the kitchen listening to an audio of Dr. King mulling over whether to leave the movement on the night of the bombing of his home. We touched the stove where he made coffee and felt the tension he must have experienced that day, and many days thereafter. 

We walked outside to the Parsonage’s Memorial Garden. As we did Helen checked her phone to learn that 11 people were killed in the tragic anti-Semitic slaughter in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Devastated, but deeply engaged in our immediate experience with historical trauma, we moved on to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

In 1879 Trustees of the Dexter Church paid $270 for a lot at the corner of what is now Dexter Avenue and Decatur Street, just a stone’s throw from the Alabama state capitol.  Not everyone was pleased, of course, but the deal went through.

Our visit was marked by the music of a children’s choir rehearsing for the Sunday morning service. In keeping with a visitor tradition, Helen stood with Matt at the podium that Dr. King used in the church when he spoke at the end of the Selma to Montgomery march and repeated the words he spoke, “how long, not long“ to describe how soon true freedom would come to African Americans.

Leaving the church a docent gave us a five-minute history of African American life in America quickly moving from slavery to re-enslavement, to Jim Crow, to lynchings, to the civil rights movement, mass incarceration and today’s struggle to ensure that black lives matter. It was another sharp and personal reminder of our nation’s history and connected our present is to our past.

After a quick lunch at Chris’s Hotdogs we walked up the street to the Alabama State Capital. The docent, a former Air Force colonel who marched from Selma to Montgomery, regaled us with stories of a Capitol that is now virtually a museum with only 21 people, including the Governor, working there. We saw the room where the southern states declared the confederacy; we saw murals in the rotunda that gave nary a hint of the relationship of Alabama to its black citizens. And we looked at the statue of Jefferson Davis still standing in front of the Capitol.

That evening Sophia Bracey Harris, a colleague of Helen’s in the early childhood community, brought the civil rights struggle home in a personal way. Sophia along with her older sister, were among the students who integrated Wetumpka High School in 1968. Soon after they started school her home was firebombed by 3 Molotov cocktails, and burned to the ground. Luckily all of her family escaped. Sophia went on to found FOCAL a network of community-based child care centers in rural Alabama and the Black Women's Leadership and Economic Development Project to help support black women's self-sufficiency and provide leadership training.

Sunday: Montgomery to Selma (and back)

It’s amazing how moving it can be just to stand in a historic place.  As we stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge we looked for the spot where Alabama law enforcement officers had charged the marchers clubbing John Lewis and so many others; we watched the peaceful Alabama River go by. We chatted with African-American families from California and Texas doing the same.

 As we walked through town we visited with two white church members acting as security guards in front of their church and told them about our journey. They were welcoming. One said forthrightly, “Oh yes, my grandfather was among the deputies on the bridge on a horse with a club that day, and I’m sure he wore a sheet on other occasions. [sic]” Imagine.

And finally at the Brown AME Church where the Selma to Montgomery march began, we heard the pastor asking “can you hear me? We wondered when all Americans will be ready to truly hear and absorb our own history. It was an echo of the lovely words I heard at the Memorial, “Thank you for hearing me.”

We stopped briefly at the Montgomery riverfront a beautiful place as most riverfronts are. But as the historic plaques told us, it was also the place where many slaves came to Montgomery and from where bales of cotton, the product of slave labor, were shipped for sale.

Our last stop was lunch at Martha’s Place,. Sophia Bracey Harris brought us there.  Martha Hawkins the owner was involved with the Black Women’s Leadership and Economic Development Project. Fighting depression, she raised four successful sons while on welfare. She founded and continues to run an extraordinary successful restaurant.  Her book, Finding Martha's Place: My Journey Through Sin, Salvation, and Lots of Soul Food is an inspiration. We were delighted to end our journey with a delicious soul food meal. 

Students Talk about the Opioid Crisis

What do young people who learn in school about why there is an opioid crisis in their community have to say about their experience?  I had the chance to find out in a recent visit to South Webster High School in the Bloom-Vernon School District in Appalachian Ohio.

I developed a relationship with the school through the Appalachian Higher Education Network and recently posted several blogs  describing the problem-based  approach the two high school teachers – Judy Ellsesser and Cyndy Hykes - are taking as well as identify the follow-up actions of students.  

South Webster High is in the southeast corner of Ohio -- in the middle of Appalachia -- about 20 miles north of Portsmouth. Its students are all white and 55.7% disadvantaged. Portsmouth and surrounding Scioto County remain an epicenter of the opioid crisis.  Members of the class studying opioids started by reading  Sam Quinones book, Dreamland, and also spoke with local officials dealing with the problem.

I have organized the reflections of junior and senior high school students into categories,  occasionally edited for clarity. Inevitably in blogs like this everyone’s words cannot be included; my apologies to students whose words are not here.  All of your views are important.

Most students knew little about the opioid crisis before the class (Knowing and Knowledge Changes Perception and Perspective)

I never knew much about the opioid problem because my family was never affected by it. Now I know that even though my family does not do drugs, we are still affected because we are a part of this community.

Coming from a sheltered life where everyone wears rose colored glasses learning about this crisis was extremely enlightening and has inspired me to try and do something small in my own community.

Learning about this crisis  has been enlightening because I never knew much about the epidemic. But now I have learned it was affecting not only  the user, but everyone else in the community too, and that has inspired me to want to help the community.”

“This unit has changed many perspectives including my own and has inspired many in our community to strive to make a change. I feel that this is more powerful than any drug awareness or prevention activity ever attempted in this community and that is something to be proud of.

Some Students Had Direct Experience with Opioids; Their Peers Did Not Know This

(You Cannot Make Assumptions about Problems and their Impact)

I realize that not everyone was aware of the problem in our community. Since some of my family is involved in drugs I’ve known of this problem since 2011 so this class gave me a perspective from those people who  hadn’t known it was a problem.

Coming from a big family, but only knowing a small portion of them due to drugs, this showed me more in depth how my parents have kept me out of the bad things going on. Now, this opioid unit has shown me just how much I was being blinded from It. That made me want to make a change in this world that much more and that is what I plan to continue doing.”

I have always been aware of the problem in my family but I never could’ve imagined it being as big of an issue as it actually is.

Students Learned about the Value of Community (Working Together is the Key)

I learned the importance of community and coming together. We need to work against the drug epidemic as a whole, not as individuals.

It was powerful and it helped all of us learn how the crisis affects us and what we can do to try to make a difference in the community.

We can come together as a community and work together. I feel like it has made us all closer and want to work together as a team to make the community great.

The teachers have shown us how much they care about students in our community and about our education. This unit has touched hearts and opened the eyes of many students including me. I am a part of the Big Buddies Program because I believe it is important to reach out and build relationships in our community starting with the young generations.

Students Begin to See Themselves as Change Agents (Young People Can Make a Difference)

We cannot control the problem, but we can make a positive change. We are the change; we can change the world.

We have all grown tremendously in almost every way possible…I have learned so much and it has inspired me to be a person of change for our community.

Even though we are in high school, we can make a change in our community.

We Can’t Turn Our Backs (Remain Compassionate while Taking Action)

I have learned not be as dismissive of those suffering from addiction. People from all walks of life can fall into the throes of addiction. It is not just weak willed people unable to resist being tempted by the drugs they take. It is people ranging from what would be considered the dregs of society to those who stand as shining pillars in communities. Nobody's safe and nobody is spared just because they have status or wealth.

We can’t just turn our backs on people. People who suffer from addiction need a strong support system, and we can’t just leave them to die. Everybody matters; it’s everyone or no one.

People who are addicted aren't the only ones to blame. [Opioids are] not only affecting the person that is addicted; addiction affects everyone in their environment. Everyone’s life is important and we cannot just mark out the people that are addicted or just give up on them.  We have to make a difference to change the future generations, give people another choice to do something good.

Summary  Reflections (Make Connections with the Disconnected in your Community)

You are not alone, and no matter how bad it gets there is always hope. Talking about your personal connection to this issue can be scary but you can possibly change someone’s life.

This unit challenged my peers to open their hearts and their minds to the addiction crisis. Our educators have called us to be the change we want to see. We have taken on the responsibility to speak life and love to the pain present in our community. If we help heal the wounded before addiction takes route then we change not only the lives of the addicted but those affected by the addicted. It starts with community to end addiction and it’ll be this village that kills Goliath.

I trust these students will go on to study other community problems.  They have lots to learn and lots of wisdom to share.

Courageous Leadership in Appalachia

As I drove toward South Webster, a small town in Appalachian Ohio in December, I wondered what the experience would be like. I was going to visit teachers at South Webster high school, Judy Ellsesser and Cyndy Hykes, to learn more about their high school class on the opioid crisis.  

Memories flooded back. I recalled Michael Harrington’s important 1960s book, The Other America, which spurred the War on Poverty, and wondered what progress our nation has made. I remembered my trip to Mingo County, West Virginia in 1966 to see a  a friend and Vista Volunteer living deep in the hollers...  And, I thought about the people who had so warmly greeted me when I arrived as a VISTA Volunteer  in the Bootheel of Missouri right after college, and the documentary Oh Freedom After While that captured their character. 

South Webster, Ohio is in Scioto County, just north of Portsmouth, Ohio, a city  at the confluence of the Ohio and Scioto Rivers.  Through its long history, captured inmurals on the river wall, Portsmouth and Scioto County have nurtured many significant people including Branch Rickey who brought Jackie Robinson to major league baseball and Roy Rogers. And, football fans should know that the Portsmouth Spartans played in the first National Football League Championship Game in 1932 against the Chicago Bears.

Once vibrant, Portsmouth and Scioto County, like many places in Ohio and across Appalachia, are now experiencing major social and economic challenges.  The opioid crisis – arriving on top of an already difficult environment – has made things much tougher;  Scioto County, Ohio has one of the highest opiood-related death rates in the state.

During my visit I found resilient leaders. From students to the Superintendent and Juvenile Court Judge there was a  deep commitment to place and community and a seemingly never- ending struggle to battle what I consider the worst domestic crisis facing our nation. 

Students studying the opioid crisis learned more than about its impact on individuals.  One wrote, “But now I have learned it was affecting not only just the user, but everyone else in the community too, and that has inspired me to want to help the community.” Many students in Ellsesser and Hykes’ class are becoming involved in efforts to support their peers and younger students through sports activities before and after school, mentoring, and educational programs. What students are learning about themselves and their communities was as unusual as was their recognition that they could act to address the problem.

Sandy Smith, principal of the South Webster elementary school, drove me and several local people to visit the homes of local families.  She knew each and every one, bringing the gift of a box of food as the reason for our visit.  She worried about the student who lived too far to participate in the basketball program that might smooth the way forward and the high school students who had been found living in a car but were now in a home we visited.  Addicted parents, regularly come to Smith’s school house, and of course their children, Smith students, bring their experience with opioids through the school house door.

Superintendent Marc Kreischer has been working hard to support his educators. He has arranged a partnership to bring mental health counselors into the schools, but recognizes the burden his teacher face, in light of the demands of state accountability systems.  Kreischer said, “This community has always faced challenges and been tested, but the opioid epidemic has made our work exponentially more difficult.”

An evening meeting at Kenny’s Country Kitchen in South Webster brought together the Juvenile Court Judge, Alan Lemon, his bailiff, court administrator and the new CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) director for conversation with school leaders and me.  Judge Lemon’s noted that his case load has grown by nearly 250% since the emergence of opioids, and the number of children in the foster care system had grown to 173 by the summer of 2016, with more than 50 children under the age of 2. But it would be irresponsible to believe that only poor children and families are affected by the opioid epidemic. The Court administrator made clear that so called “good kids- ” that is, children of lawyers, doctors and business people as well as juvenile court employees - are also caught up in the turmoil.

Judge Lemon has been sending his bailiff and court administrator into the schools of Scioto County, including South Webster; he recognizes that this community problem, like so many others, always arrives at the school house door. And if his team can help schools support families perhaps the number of children before his bench might go down.

The Judge also sees the unique value of the class on the why and how of the opioid crisis that Judy Ellsesser and Cyndy Hykes are teaching. He said, ”Every student in Scioto County should participate in this class. My experience working with high school students tells me that their approach will have a greater impact than will a prevention approach.”

The dictionary defines courage as “the ability to do something that frightens one,” and “strength in the face of pain or grief.” Courageous is the word that best describes the local leaders in South Webster and in the many other communities across the country grappling with the opioid crisis.

I am still waiting for our federal government to support the courageous leaders in South Webster and in other communities and  help them address a problem that is having an unimaginable impact on the fabric of our families and communities and on our politics and economy.