When: 2:00 PM Friday, March 29, 2019
From: Richard Brown Memorial United Methodist Church, 1205 Elm St., Youngstown
To: Sojourn to the Past journey to Civil Rights Sites in the South
On Friday, March 29, 2019 at 2:00 PM, Penny Wells and Derrick McDowell will be taking a group of twelve students and four adults to participate in the Sojourn to the Past journey to the Civil Rights sites in the South. Leaving from Richard Brown Memorial United Methodist Church, 1205 Elm St., headed to the Akron-Canton Airport, they will fly to Atlanta, Georgia where they will meet other students from California and Oregon.
In Atlanta, they will be greeted by Congressman John Lewis and visit the King Center and the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. They will travel by bus to Montgomery, Alabama. They will sit on the capitol steps where they will read and reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech delivered at the end of the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. They will touch the names of individuals on the Civil Rights Memorial, who were killed due to racial hatred. They will be able to add their names to the Wall of Tolerance promising to work for social justice.
While in Montgomery, they will have the opportunity to see the lynching museum, which Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative opened one year ago and walk through the memorial honoring those who were lynched. There is an Ohio marker, which lists the fifteen victims, who were lynched in this state. They will walk across the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama just as the marchers did on “Bloody Sunday”, when they were attacked by state troops.
In Birmingham, they will visit the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church where the “Children’s March” began and then walk across the street to the Kelly Ingram Park where the children were arrested, attacked by police dogs and sprayed with powerful fire hoses. They will hear the lesson of the “Four Little Girls” who died when the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed by the Klan and meet the family of Lisa McNair, one of the girls who was murdered. They will also meet Sarah Collins Rudolph, who survived the bombing but lost most of her sight in the blast.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, the students will listen to Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, describe her horrific experiences when she went to Central High School on the first day of integration in 1957. Minnijean Brown Trickey, another one of the Little Rick Nine, is with the Sojourn students for the entire journey. The journey ends in Memphis, Tennessee at the Lorraine Hotel where Dr. King was assassinated.
This is a history immersion, leadership development experience – a traveling classroom. Students will all receive an independent history credit.
Those participating are:
Little Alvarado and Jaliyah Whited-May – Chaney
Rayshelle Keyes, Lyric Goliday, Joseph Dixon – East
Miah Pierce, Keishara Price, Jenaya Conley, Zyairra Brown, Brai’den Little – Early College
Brandon Summerlin and Jenna Gebhardt – Howland High School
Adults: Diane Gonda, Courtney Angelo, Felicia Thomas, Sean Barron, Derrick McDowell and Penny Wells