Friday, We Journey to Memphis then home...

A friend sent this poem to me and it seems only right to post now as we journey to Memphis, Dr. King's last stop in life. 

The Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Between a president who recently died
and one about to begin
we remember a man who was never president.

(We notice the harmonies, and the dissonances.)
See how our choices matter—
not our position, nor our power, but our character.

We remember Martin, who was famous,
and in his name thousands more who were not,
but just as brave and merciful and mighty.

We remember all those who were peacemakers,
the nonviolent seekers of justice who have gone before,
and those who are now among us, without office.

We give thanks for those who stood against injustice,
who faced violence, hatred and anger with gentle courage,and we pray for that spirit as well: 

that we will not walk with the haughty and the cruel, 

that we will be truthful and kind,

that we confront the power to exclude with the power to love. 

With blessed leaders showing us the way, 

we pray that we will choose love over fear, 

generosity over selfishness, service over supremacy. 

We give thanks for the saints who have gone before, 

link arms with the saints who risk even now,and with their song in our throats, we carry on. 

By Steve Garnaas Holmes in Unfolding Light 

 

We spent our last day at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee located at the Lorraine Motel. On April 4, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated here at the Lorraine Motel, just a day after delivering his prophetic "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.

Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young and other black leaders came to support 1,300 striking sanitation workers. Their grievances included unfair working conditions (on rainy days, black workers had to return home without pay while paid white supervisors remained on the job, and black workers were given only one uniform and no place in which to change clothes), and poor pay (the highest-paid black worker could not hope to earn more than $70 a week).

Following a bloody confrontation between marching strikers and police, a court injunction had been issued banning further protests. Dr. King hoped their planned march would overturn the court injunction, but such plans were cut short on April 4, 1968, when an assassin, James Earl Ray, shot and killed Dr. King on the balcony of his room.

During Dr. King’s funeral a tape recording was played in which Dr. King spoke of how he wanted to be remembered after his death: “I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr.,
tried to give his life serving others”

A sanitation truck.

Striking sanitation workers.

Striking sanitation workers.

Dr. King's I have a Dream Speech

Mural of Sanitation Workers

It seems only fitting to close this blog with a poem by one of our students, Devin Melendez.

Statues

Statues are lifeless with stories behind them.
but the one’s I’ve met today had life, 

they breath, 

they speak, 

they cry but they aren’t from this time. 

As I walked amongst them and with them,
I could hear the stories 

they were trying to portray and the life 

and people they wished to cast out. 

The memories will never fade as the nightmares prolong.
The scars will always stay, even when the people go
their stories are whispered into the wind forever. 

But their sacrifices, the blood spilt, tears that shed
it seems all that mattered in the end is that the fight never ended. 

A new era has begun that they couldn’t see, 

couldn’t hear or feel 

but the people born after 

due to their sacrifice 

remember and celebrate them for eternity.

Gone 

but not forgotten 

statues.

~Devin Melendez

Thursday- Medgar Evers, Emmett Till & Fannie Lou Hamer

This Civil Rights Journey has been a journey of pain and tears for the inhumane actions of so many against so many of God's children and in the many ways it is continuing today. It will take a long time to fully unpack this experience yet these stark realities shake me to my core as I hope it does you and the young people I'm traveling with. 

We met with Angela Steward the archivist at the COFO Education Center for the last 20 years. She is a living encyclopedia of the Civil Rights Movement, I could not write fast enough to gather all that she was telling us.

One person she spoke of was Margaret Walker, who the center is named for. She lived on the same street as Medgar Evers here in Jackson, she compared Medgar to Micah as a prophetic voice.

She read us her poem, Jubilee, and encouraged us to know and read her book of poetry, Prophets for a New Day.

Medgar Wiley Evers was an American civil rights activist and soldier who was the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi. Evers, a United States Army veteran who served in World War II, was engaged in efforts to overturn racial segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans, including the enforcement of voting rights when he was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith on June 12, 1963 at his home in front of his family. 

Our next stop was Glendora, MS where Emmett Louis Till a 14-year-old African American youth was abducted and brutally murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the acquittal of his killers drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.

We visited Ruleville, MS, the home of Fannie Lou Hamer.

She was an American voting and women's rights activist, community organizer, and a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was the vice-chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Hamer also organized Mississippi's Freedom Summer along with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She was also a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, an organization created to recruit, train, and support women of all races who wish to seek election to government office.

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Wednesday- Mississippi bound

We began our day at Zion United Methodist Church, where we met Jewel Rush McDonald who shared the story of how her Church was burned down in 1964 and how the three Freedom Riders, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered for investigating the burning of the church and the beating of the church members including her mother and brother.

We then went on to Jackson Mississippi to the Civil Rights Museum there and met Hezekiah Watkins the youngest freedom rider arrested at age 13!

When he was arrested he was taken to Parchman prison and placed on death row for 13 days. 

JFK heard about him and called the governor to have him released. His mother was called by Jackson police Dept. and she thought he was dead. She was grateful to God for her son's life being spared. As a result she wouldn't let him leave the house until he went back to school in the fall. 

Zain Bevel an activist asked if he would join the movement and initially he said no. Eventually he changed his mind and asked his mother for permission to be part of the Freedom Riders. She thought he'd be killed like Emmett Till but eventually she consented. In his time as a freedom writer Hezekiah was arrested 109 times, he was the most arrested freedom rider in Mississippi !

"Freedom Riders work for all people, not just black people. 

If you don't vote, there's no hope!"

Tuesday-Selma to Mississippi

We begin our day in Selma working in the Edmundite Ministries.

Here we are helping out at the Learning Academy with Sr. Kathy Navarra SSJ and at Bosco Nutrition Center.

Here at the Boutique

And then a visit with Sr. Pat Flass, SSJ at her's and Sr. Kathy's home. This year we SSJs will celebrate our  85th anniversary of serving in Alabama with the Edmundite Ministries.

We then traveled to Meridian, MS to give tribute to James Earl Chaney from Meridian, MS and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York City civil rights workers who were murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan on June 21, 1964. 

Monday's Journey

We left Montgomery this morning and our first stop was this memorial to Viola Liuzzo.

Viola Fauver Liuzzo was an American civil rights activist in Detroit, Michigan. She was known for going to Alabama in March 1965 to support the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights. On March 25, 1965, she was shot dead by three Ku Klux Klan members while driving activists between the cities and transportation.

Park Ranger Theresa Hall have us some background the Lownes County Interpretive Center which is located roughly halfway between Selma and Montgomery along the Trail on U.S. Highway 80 West near Whitehall, AL. The center has exhibits, including interactive exhibits, that tell the story of the history of the Voting Rights Movement, the 1965 Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March, and the Tent City that housed 20 families over a two year period following the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Beginning of the March from Selma to Montgomery near Brown's Chapel.

At lunch we heard from Linda Bland who was the youngest person to march on Bloody Sunday where she was beaten back by state troopers over the Edmund Pettis bridge. She had been arrested nine times by her 14th birthday on behalf of civil rights. She is a freedom fighter and a great inspiration!

We later walked over the bridge to the Civil Rights memorial Park commemorating all those who fought and died for justice throughout the civil Rights period.

We then continued on to Brown's chapel where we saw the Civil Rights Freedom Wall

And found the staff of Good Samaritan Hospital and the Sisters of St Joseph of Rochester noted on that wall for our work towards Civil Rights.

We then visited a park spearheaded by Joanne Bland, Linda's sister, and here's one mural from that park.

We had both are lunch and dinner at reflections coffee shop hosted by Jackie Smith. She made us feel at home with her delicious cooking and her message of generosity with each person she meets! 

She was awarded a national recognition as "entrepreneur of the year" in Washington in 2024. She and her coffee shops are jewel of Selma!