Campus Ministries recently brought 10 students and two faculty members to Selma, Ala. to understand the interaction of different faiths within the civil rights movement.
The trip coincided with 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s march to Selma, including Bloody Sunday — the first of three marches where state soldiers assailed unarmed marchers after they passed the county line with weapons and tear gas.
The trip also included visits to Montgomery and Birmingham, allowing the students to learn about the interplay of non-violence and Civil Rights.
Many students, including sophomore Lucy Delgado, felt that the trip was a life-changing experience.
“I was able to meet people working in it and helping to build the roots for a new community in Selma,” Delgado wrote in an email to The News-Letter.
The students worked with Freedom Foundation and Southern Poverty Law Center, two nonprofit organizations dedicated to civil rights, education and advocacy.
“I saw the civil rights movement is still going on today,” Delgado wrote. “I enjoyed Freedom Foundation volunteers we worked with since they did their best to make this an enriching and reflective experience.”
Freshman Ian Markham also had a high opinion of the Freedom Fighters.
“The Freedom Foundation volunteers are such an inspiring group of individuals,” Markham wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “They saw the issues in Selma regarding poverty and de facto segregation, and they just up and left their jobs and lives and families in Colorado to move to a poor community among which they are largely unwelcome to fight for basic human rights.”
Faith Owhonda, a junior, felt that the trip provided her with a valuable experience outside of Hopkins that promoted service and connections among members of different faiths.
“Even though Selma is in the midst of a lot of turmoil and racial tensions, the people at the Freedom Foundation were incredibly gracious and loving towards all the spring break groups and seem to have a positive outlook on life despite some of the astounding persecution they’ve faced in trying to fight for equality and social justice,” Owhonda wrote in an email to The News-Letter.
Other students also felt that the issues that arose in Selma 50 years ago are still unresolved.
Senior Alexis Toliver wrote about the state and stagnant social progress present in Selma in an email to The News-Letter.
“Selma is in a terrible state and it will stay this way unless something is done,” Toliver wrote. “I was rather perplexed by this discovery considering that most media outlets have been covering the victory of Selma that was 50 years ago.”
The series of marches in Selma helped lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 where voting rights were granted for all citizens, regardless of race. Martin Luther King, Jr. pushed for the media to cover and publicize the movement, which greatly helped its momentum.
“However, this is simply a facade,” Toliver wrote. “Presently, I hope to use media to bring awareness to the terrible state of the city and invoke others to serve and fight against injustice.”
Toliver cited five subjects in her letter of concern, one of which included the continued presence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a white supremacist hate group.
“The KKK is currently recruiting new members,” Toliver wrote. “4,000 recruitment fliers were distributed throughout the city on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The fliers were packaged with a rock and thrown on to resident’s doorsteps.”
Other problems Toliver quoted were voter apathy, poverty among Selma’s residents and ongoing segregation.
Program Coordinator for Campus Ministries Esther Boyd wrote on the Campus Ministries website about the social issues prominent in Selma, but shared an optimistic view of the future.
“Over the course of our time in Alabama, we understood that these are not problems unique to Selma, but are present across the country, including in our own city of Baltimore,” Boyd wrote. “Hopefully, we also returned with some of that hope, joy, and promise, and an eagerness and readiness to put them to work fighting for a future of equality and justice here on our campus and in our community. 50 years later, and we march on.”
Markham agreed with Boyd’s sentiments.
“I expected this to be a service trip on which we would be helping out a poor community, but I feel like we actually took more away from the community with which we worked than the other way around,” he wrote.
