Civil Rights Tour: Reflection #1

                      

     
 Stand up and keep the light on.
      Bishop Calvin
      Woods

 














My husband Bruce and I just returned from a week long civil rights tour where we visited key civil rights sites in Alabama and Mississippi, concluding with a day in Memphis. Our group of eleven from our church was led by our passionate and knowledgeable guide, Mark Swiggum. Over the years Mark has developed relationships with many of the foot soldiers of the movement, and we had the privilege of meeting with many of them, including Bishop Calvin Woods, one of the key leaders in Birmingham, who visited with us in Birmingham's Kelly Ingram Park. 

This is the park where in May, 1963, following the orders of Bull Connor, thousands of students--CHILDREN--were assaulted with fire hoses and police dogs and then jailed. 

I stood where blood had been shed.

Sculpture of a Fire Hose

I stood where children had cried and screamed and then had been herded into paddy wagons and crowded into jail cells or cattle pens at the fairgrounds. Conditions were unspeakable. 

I stood where our brothers and sisters were treated as less than human. I stood where they declared with their bodies that enough was enough. 

Kelly Ingram Park is sacred ground. 

Each of the civil rights sites are places where we as citizens of this United States should fall on our knees and say in one voice, "We will do better. We will not allow anyone to be treated this way again. We will lift up all in our land, recommitting to the belief that all are created equal."

Along with Bishop Woods, each of the foot soldiers we met shared stories. They responded to our questions. Sometimes they lifted their voices in song, inviting us to sing, too. They reflected on the pain and trauma of those years and expressed their concerns and their hopes for the future. And, amazingly, they often articulated forgiveness, modeling a generosity of spirit that took my breath away.

I will be sorting through what I learned and felt for quite some time. More importantly, I will wrestle with what I need to do now, and I intend to share this journey with you on this blog. At the moment, however, I feel a bit shaky. Teary. Fragile. Overwhelmed. 
That's what often happens when you see what you don't want to see, when you are forced to remember what you have forgotten, when you are in the presence of ordinary people who did extraordinary things, and when you are on sacred ground.


                       Light not only warms, of course, but
                       illuminates both things we want to
                       see and don't want to see.
                                      Anne Lamott
                                      Almost Everything, Notes on Hope
                                      p.16

An Invitation
What do you remember from the civil rights movement in the 60's? I would love to know.