Unpacking History, Packing for a Trip

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to be a chaperone on a Civil Rights trip with students and two other chaperones. I appreciate that the pandemic is at a place where these trips are possible again. Thank you to the scientists who developed the vaccines which are a big reason why our trip is a go.

The 8th graders going on the trip have already studied the Holocaust and will soon be discussing the Civil Rights Movement with classmates. I taught high school social studies myself for ten years, with not a lot of time spent on any one historical theme, including this one. I knew a little then. I know more now. I still have so much to learn. 

I don't think any of us going on this trip really know what we will be experiencing. You can't know some of these things until you stand on the ground where events took place and are memorialized, see the words and faces of the people who suffered, endured, led. 

I have immersed myself in some reading and viewing of people and stories like those of Claudette Colvin and Bryan Stevenson. I watched "Best of Enemies," "Just Mercy" and "Rosewood" in recent weeks. We will spend time in Atlanta, Georgia, Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama, and Memphis, Tennessee. Many miles will be covered and sites seen.  

And yet, I will only get a glimpse of what life was like for a slave, for a young black girl living in the Jim Crow South, for hundreds and thousands who courageously joined boycotts and marches. I will get to appreciate the ongoing work of people like lawyer Bryan Stevenson. I will be a visitor. A humble witness to some of the best and worst of humanity. 

My bags are getting packed. My mind and heart are getting prepared. I look forward to each stop we will make. I still have so much to learn.

See you back here next week. In the meantime, during these last several days of Black History Month and all year, I encourage you each to read, watch, and learn more about the people and places who make up such a courageous and rich past, present, and future.