For nine days in June 2016, Carlow University students traveled over 2,000 miles through Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee to study the people and places that gave birth to the American Civil Rights Movement. Major sites included the King National Historic Site in Atlanta, the lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, as well as churches and other famous locations that commemorate the movement.
The tour gave students the opportunity to meet and speak first hand with the foot soldiers who were part of the movement. For example, Rutha Harris, a preacher’s daughter from Albany Georgia who was one of the original Freedom Singers taught the students freedom songs; Juniata Abernathy, widow of Dr. Ralph Abernathy, who witnessed the movement from the ground up, spoke to the students about her life as an activist; and Joanne Bland, who at age eleven participated in the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge that became known as “Bloody Sunday” took the students on a tour of Selma as she recounted the events of 1965.
Carlow faculty: Dr. Linda Schifino, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Chair, Communication Dept.
Student participants:
Radayah Everett, Communication & Media major
Nakita LaPrade, Corporate Communication major
Victoria Renno, Psychology major
Tyler Steele, Biology major
Read more about student experiences and see many photos at the Tour’s Facebook page.
Learn more about Carlow University’s communication program.