Civil Rights Memorial

Today was a very busy day for the group. We started off with a walking day in Montgomery Alabama. We started with a brief tour of the Grey Hound Bus Station (with an actual bus in which freedom riders were in) and the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where Martin Luther King began his first full time pastor ship. We also met with the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization that works in the criminal justice system in hopes of minimizing the death role/ death sentence of the youth in particularly in Alabama. Along with walking around the town of Montgomery and touring Selma, we went to the Civil Rights Memorial.

This memorial was the most interesting to me because once we got in and went through security, the museum was a bit dark with the lighting and there were maybe quotes and photos with stories of respectable martyrs in the Civil Rights movement as well as individuals that have lost their lives either to try and better ours or those due to the great deal of systematic racism and intolerance of people of color by white oppressors. One story that I found very sad and depressing was of a man named Omar Dia who immigrated to the US in 1995 from Senegal, Africa to provide a better life for his family. And three years later he was shot by a 19 year old named Nathan Thrill who justified this gruesome and hateful action as "an act of passion". I had to reread this story more than once because I could not believe what I was reading and to imagine that this on only happened about 17 years ago, really just allowed me to wonder what the future is in store for our generation and the generations to come. 

Aicha Camara, Baltimore City College