After their visit to cities and sites in Alabama, the Fellows spent the second half of the Summer Journey visiting Memphis, TN, Wilmington, NC, and Farmville, VA. These destinations proved to be enlightening, exciting, . . . and hot!
Memphis, TN
The Fellows visited the National Civil Rights Museum, which is situated in the Lorraine Hotel, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Among other things, this museum educated the Fellows about the riots that occurred following the assassination. The Fellows connected this to what they learned from Dr. Montgomery at the Harris House in Montgomery and the anger and despair felt by the African American community.
Also in Memphis, the Fellows visited with Dr. Earl Fisher, the leader of an Abyssinian Baptist Church, who discussed current efforts to pass laws granting racial reparations to descendants of slaves and in response to other human rights infractions. Dr. Fisher discussed the 2020 legislation passed in Evanston Illinois to pay housing reparations to make amends for discriminatory legislation passed in 1920. The Fellows learned that racial reparations is an organized effort and, in some ways, an extension of civil rights work. Dr. Fisher’s talk also connected students to the importance of local politics by describing how Memphis’s local elections have influenced public policy in the city. Students connected this conversation to attorney Bruce Spiva’s presentation this year regarding local Washington politics and voting rights issues.
Wilmington, NC
The Fellows visited Dark Branch, an enslaved descendant community outside Wilmington and the home of Dr. Chavis’ origin family. The descendant community has lost land over the years due to industrial development, heirs’ property and urban sprawl. The Fellows visited this community’s historic African American cemetery and its historic Kendall Church, which is still active today.
The Fellows were honored to take part in a drum circle with Pastor Christopher Williams at Kendall Chapel. Students learned about the healing power of music to mitigate and create resilience in the face of trauma. The session culminated with each student receiving an instrument and creating sounds to reflect their emotions.
During their time in Wilmington, the Fellows visited Bellamy Plantation. This site was preserved and includes the plantation home and the enslaved quarters. The tour guide provided insight to the lives of the confederate plantation owners. Students displayed their critical thinking skills when they reacted negatively to the tour guide’s suggestion that the enslaved peoples had a good life.
The Fellows also visited Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site to learn more about Wilmington colonial life as well as the use of this site as a confederate fort. Long-time OUDC Board member Rabbi Bruce Aft joined the Fellows on this tour and also treated everyone to an evening Wilmington Sharks baseball game!
The WilmingtoNColor tour provided the Fellows insight into Wilmington’s once thriving Black community located mostly in the North section of the town. The Fellows learned about the Wilmington Massacre of 1898, which devastated the community. At the end of the reconstruction era, Wilmington’s government was led by the republican party (more liberal party at the time) and a significant number of Black officials. To unseat them, a group of white supremacists held a rally with as many as 2,000 white citizens, who fixed the election and then engaged in racial terror. They burned the successful Daily Record, a Black-owned newspaper and killed numerous Black citizens. This massacre led to the only successful coup in USA history, installing a previous confederate soldier, Alfred Moore Waddell, as mayor. Only a few of the historic Black businesses are in existence today.
Farmville, VA/ Prince Edward County
The Fellows visited the Robert Russo (RR) Moton Civil Rights in Education Museum. Two hours was not nearly enough time to learn about this significant site. The RR Moton Black-only school was the site of a student school protest in 1951 in which students walked out demanding equal education. The NAACP joined in the fight when over 1000 community members met with them to discuss utilizing the walkout as a fight for integration. As a result, the case became one of the five cases to comprise Brown v Board (1954). Following the Supreme Court’s decision to integrate public schools, the Commonwealth of Virginia led the previous confederate states in massive resistance strategies. Massive resistance included targeted legislation to deny integration and included the closing of schools. Prince Edward County became one of the most intransigent sites in the country, closing schools from 1959-1964.
One of the things that students were really struck by at this museum is that public education is not an explicit constitutional right, so that law and court precedent are the only assurances of a public school system. Before the museum, many had not comprehended what it was like for education to be a privilege rather than a right, and one that could be taken away.
The RR Moton Museum is also relevant to today’s justice efforts. In 2005, the Commonwealth of VA passed an education restoration scholarship fund that provided financial support for individuals directly impacted by the school closings to go back to school to receive a GED, Bachelors, Masters, or PhD. In 2023, VA congress changed the scholarship program to permit funds go to the descendants of those directly impacted by the school closings.
