The Journey Begins

Amy and Me in the Chapel at Tougaloo College

This weekend I set off on a trip I have been dreaming about for the better part of a year.  It is actually because of this trip that I actually started this blog in the first place.  This trip is a pilgrimage of sorts, where I will visit some of the sites where major events of the Civil Rights Movement took place.  Our journey will take my friend Amy and me to Birmingham, Atlanta, Selma, Montgomery, and Memphis.  My original vision for this trip was that it would be a multiracial, multi-school, two week long journey retracing the journey of the Freedom Riders from Washington DC to New Orleans.  Sadly we the interested students had other obligations and financial and time restraints forced us to opt for a shorter trip.  This week marked the 50th Anniversary of when the Freedom Riders rode into Jackson, MS, and Amy and I wanted to mark this event with our own mini-freedom ride.

In my junior year of college I took a class on religious peace movements, and we spent a chunk of that class reading about the Civil Rights Movement in the 60's; specifically Dr. King's approach to non-violent resistance to the Jim Crow South.  This trip is actually a pilgrimage to many of the sites where Dr. King and hundreds of others embraced the ideals of non-violence and stood up against oppression and hate.

A lot of people ask me why I am doing this, because they think it is interesting that a white college student from an upper-middle class background would be interested in the Civil Rights.  There are two main reasons for why I am doing this. First, I believe we have to know and embrace our past in order to keep history from repeating itself.  Second, and this is probably the biggest reason why, love wins.  The cornerstone of the non-violence movement in the Civil Rights was the idea of loving one's enemy.  Through loving one's enemy with a genuine respect of their common humanity and recognizing them as a child of God one will not resort to violent means in challenging oppression and injustice.  Violence begets violence. Hatred breeds fear, violence, and oppression.  But love conquers all.  This might seem idealistic, but if you consider yourself a Christian you believe in the basic fact that God's love conquered death, and guarantees us life.  When studying the non-violent social movements of the world you will see that they worked.  Gandhi's march to the sea.  The American Civil Rights Movement.  The anti-Aparthied movement in South Africa.  These movements included people from different countries and faiths, but they recognized the enduring power of non-violent means of overturning oppressive establishments and governments.

So this post is the first of several for the next few days in which Amy and I will share and reflect on our experiences.  We will post pictures, videos, and other things that suit our fancy in order to keep the folks back home abreast on our journey.  Prayers would be greatly appreciated as we begin this journey, and we hope our journey will get you interested in learning more about the Civil Rights Movement and how non-violent resistance changed American