“Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth.”

Friday, May 11^th, 2012

            Today we went Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial, which has been established as a place to honor those who have actually given their lives to the Civil Rights Movement. This is a beautiful place. Outside the building there is a fountain that displays the names of those who have made a huge impact during this time including Emmett Till, Medgar Evars, Jimmie Jackson, Viola Liuzzo, Martin Luther King Jr., among many others. The center, itself, is filled information of these people's lives as well as a list of those who died that we have no information on. At the end of the tour, we were presented with is a collage demonstrating the human rights battles that we continue to fight today such as racism, sexism, heterosexism, disability discrimination. There are mini-biographies for those who have died during these specific movements, and images of those who continue to fight against inequality. I was very proud to add my name among those who have visited this center, including my fellow participants, and have been moved to actively fight for the equality of all human beings in my own life. 

-- Kevin 

Saturday, May 12^th, 2012

            Today was filled with so many interesting new learning experiences. We all headed down to Tuskegee, Alabama where we first took a tour of Booker T. Washington’s house (aka mansion). The lavishness of his manor paralleled his philosophy of blacks’ advancement in society through self-sufficiency and economic growth. Our tour guide pointed out all the innovative features of the house that were unique to the time and location. Electricity, a sauna, and a dumbwaiter are just some of the things we marveled at. After the tour we headed across the street to the George Washington Carver Museum where we marveled at the many uses of peanuts and plants for medicinal purposes. Even peanut earrings were purchased in commemoration! After that, we headed over to the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multi-Cultural Center to learn about the syphilis experiments conducted on African Americans in the 40s. The fact that this history has not been exposed to general public on a large scale was very disheartening. Later we visited the Tuskegee Air Museum, and by that time, I’m not going to lie, I was getting a little tired. We learned about how Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to fly with an African American pilot, there were vintage adds, voice recordings of pilots, and we even got to test out our skills at folding parachutes. All in all, it was a very tiresome and adventurous day: it seems like that has been the pattern thus far and we all don’t seem to mind it one bit!

Aurora