Spiders on Civil Rights Trail: Day 2
10/15/2024 | General, Academic Services, Spider Performance
Five Spider student-athletes have embarked upon a fall break tour of key civil rights sites throughout Alabama and Tennessee as a part of the Richmond Athletics Civic Engagement and Co-Curricular Programming. Kirby Mooney and George Washington III from men's basketball, Ava Milisits and Sydney Moore from soccer, and Jordan Jaffe from baseball will share their experiences with daily recaps on RichmondSpiders.com.
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Day Two: Sydney Moore
After fueling up at the hotel, we began our day by walking over to the Alabama Department of Archives and History. There, we had a guided tour with one of their curators, Sam. There, we learned about the Rosenwald schools, which were an important part of early 20th-century education for African American children in the South. These schools were funded through a partnership between Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington, and it was amazing to see how these schools provided a future of education for children with limited opportunities due to segregation.
After spending some time at the Archives, we met up with our tour guide, Ann, who took us on a walking tour around downtown Montgomery, pointing out many sites of significance. We saw the First White House of the Confederacy, which housed Jefferson Davis during the Confederacy's time in Montgomery. Immediately, the man standing out front recognized the Spiders on our gear. He was well aware of the parallels between the City of Richmond, and Montgomery, as the second White House of the Confederacy is located in downtown Richmond. We then strolled down Washington Avenue and headed into the SPLC's Civil Rights Memorial Center. Inside, we watched a short documentary that connected the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s to the social justice movements of today. At the end of our visit, we added our names to the Wall of Justice, a powerful space where visitors can pledge to work for justice in their own lives.
Continuing our tour through the quiet streets of Montgomery, we made a brief stop at a local bookstore before entering the Freedom Rides Museum, which is housed in the former Greyhound bus station. We learned about how both black and white activists of the movement fought against segregation on buses and in bus terminals across the South during the Freedom Rides. Part of the bus station is memorialized, showing the door frame where black passengers had to enter, away from white riders.Â
Next, we visited the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University, where we learned about Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus on December 1, 1955. She simply and calmly said "no" when the bus driver tried to make her leave her seat for a white passenger. This act sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days. Within the museum, we watched a realistic reenactment of Rosa Parks' stand. It made you feel as though you were watching history unfold right before your eyes. The museum stressed how during that time, the black community came together, organizing carpools and walking to protest segregated seating on public buses. Following the filing of Browder v. Gayle on February 1, 1956, on June 5th, a panel of federal district court judges ruled 2-1 that bus segregation was unconstitutional. On December 21, 1956 – 382 days after the boycott began, black people returned to the buses, victorious in this fight.Â
After grabbing lunch at Chris' Famous Hotdogs, one of the oldest restaurants in Montgomery, we set off on an hour-long bus ride to Selma with our guide Jake. Along the way, we stopped at the Lowndes County Interpretive Center to learn more about the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. We learned about how African Americans in the region fought for the right to vote and the extreme barriers they faced in doing so, and this ultimately sparked the historic march. Arriving in Selma, we walked across the Edmond Pettus Bridge, the site of the Bloody Sunday beatings during the first attempt at the voting rights march. Walking across the bridge was a solemn experience knowing the weight of the history that took place that day. We cannot help but think of all of those who walked these same steps, many years before us.
On our ride back to Montgomery, we retraced the 54-mile march route from Selma to Montgomery. Our guide, Jake, pointed out the locations of tent sites where marchers camped along the way. We also passed by the Viola Liuzzo Memorial, honoring the Michigan activist who was shot and killed by the Ku Klux Klan while helping shuttle marchers back to Selma. She was shot and ran off the road for having a black man riding with her in the front seat of her car. Hearing the story from Jake, who is from Lowndes County, was incredibly special as when he was just 12 years old, he walked 10 miles during the march. He participated firsthand in this special movement, and we were fortunate enough to hear about it directly from him. Jake showed us pictures of when he was a young boy, standing on the steps of his small school house, pointing out the exact location of where he grew up, along our route.Â
Once we returned to Montgomery, Jake wanted to share with us where he graduated from college, Alabama State University, an HBCU. Jake is incredibly proud of his campus, and mentioned that on homecoming weekend, they hosted 30,000 fans for their football game. Being able to spend time with Jake, a primary source within the Civil Rights Movement, was so important to what we've been able to learn throughout our experiences thus far.Â
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