This week has been an adventure. Not only did I spend four days camping in Alabama with 12 middle schooler's, but I also was given the amazing opportunity of experiencing the true history of race relations in our country. The history they don't tell us much about in school.
I visited the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, where I saw hundreds of examples of forceful segregation and aggressive anti-voting rights campaigns. I crossed the street to the 16th Street Baptist Church where four little girls were killed in a bombing by white supremacists sparking brutal riots. This led to the powerful Birmingham Children's Crusade, a series of non-violent protest carried out by thousands of black children and teens. The world watched as their peaceful protest was met with the violence of the police, causing a necessary outcry from the nation against the injustice faced by the African American community.
I walked through Kelly Ingram Park and admired the monuments erected to honor those individuals who fought for freedom that dark day in Birmingham.
From Birmingham, I traveled to Selma, Alabama, where I experienced a glimpse of what it was like to be a victim of the African Slave Trade through the emotional and interactive reenactment created by Sister Afriye. I then visited the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in which I learned about the Selma to Montgomery March in which protesters were beaten back across the Edmond Pettus Bridge. This protest was attempted again a few days later and was again cut short at the bridge by Dr. Martin Luther King after the threat of deadly force by the police. We marched across that bridge, singing freedom songs, internalizing the atmosphere of that march. I experienced all these things and so much more.
I learned more on this trip about the true history of the Civil Rights Movement than I have in 19 years of life and school. This raised so many questions in me about the integrity of our nation. Why are these events brushed over or not even mentioned at all in our history classes? Why must we designate only one month to even reflect on these atrocities? Why does everyone expect these issues to be over when these specific events occurred less than 60 years ago and continue today? How are we, as a nation, trying to fix these devastating wrongs? Are we acknowledging our problems and working together for a positive solution, or are we working much harder to erase those from our history who truly tried to fix the problem? Why are we actively trying to perpetuate the miserable racist system that plagues the United States?
The answer to all of it is power. It always has been. Rich white people have spent hundreds of years and trillions of dollars to create and sustain the negative stigma around the African American community while breeding conflict within this same community to ensure its low standing in society. Who benefits from the continued use and glamorization of the N word? Who benefits from the perpetuation of degrading women, romanticizing drug culture, and segregating communities and school systems? Answer: the rich and powerful. The same ones that have created these disastrous systems are the only ones who benefit from them.
It's time that we acknowledge the problem. This has gone on far too long. Black history IS American history, and it should be treated as such. We can't erase or escape our past. We must embrace it to learn from it. When those in power erase these events, they will be repeated. The cycle must end.
