UP student Mary Burchett works with Birmingham, Alabama high school youths.
University of Portland photo
Fists raised and backpacks in tow, 12 University of Portland students recently marched toward the Alabama state capitol of Montgomery to trace the last leg of a 1965 civil rights march that followed a tragedy that became known as the “Bloody Sunday” attack.
Their walk along Dexter Avenue was part of an annual civil rights plunge, an education and service trip that included visits to Birmingham, Atlanta, New Orleans, Selma, Biloxi and Americus — sites key in the civil rights struggle.
The students were accompanied by chemistry professor Ray Bard, Holy Cross Father Michael Belinsky and Laura Goble, UP’s AmeriCorps and Vista representative.
The plunge lasted nearly three weeks and participating students such as Clay Williams, a senior majoring in political science and history, came away with lasting impressions.
“I learned that more than ever, civil rights is still an extremely serious issue that America needs to deal with,” Williams says. “Many Americans live under the impression that racism is no longer prevalent. However, racial injustice has become institutionalized in the economic and political structure of the country.”
Bloody Sunday occurred March 7, 1965, when 600 civil rights marchers were attacked by state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas. Only the third, and last, march successfully made it into Montgomery. The route along Dexter Avenue is memorialized as part of the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail.
The civil rights plunge, in its second year, grew out of a prior trip sponsored by the university’s center for service and leadership. The students had traveled south to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
As they had in two previous summer visits to the south, students met with and assisted Katrina victims still rebuilding their homes and lives. But the civil rights plunge was created to provide students a better understanding of why so many have suffered and why the recovery still is going on, according to Goble, who served as an advisor on the student-coordinated trip.
“Students want to do a project they feel good about, and we want service to be bigger than that,” says Goble. “A trip like this gives them relationship time. They get to meet the people they’re helping and they learn a wider context. It’s not just the service, but the learning.”
Organizers hope students will learn about key events, places, and people involved in the civil rights movement and gain compassion for the continued struggle for racial equality and economic equity in the United States.
Williams said a highlight of his plunge experience involved attending an Advanced Placement American history class at Parker High School in Birmingham. The school consists of mostly low-income, African American students and is in major disrepair with only one working men’s bathroom, according to Williams.
Like many schools in the south, families with money and political power have moved to the suburbs, leaving inner-city schools to languish.
Regarding the Katrina aftermath, students say they learned how economic racism left many poor residents vulnerable to natural disasters. “Segregation in housing developments is a painful reality in American history,” says Williams.
“The lower Ninth Ward in Louisiana, which was one of the hardest hit areas of the South, should never have been built. It is well below sea-level and is only protected from flood waters by government-built levies that ended up failing during the hurricane.”
Williams says it is important to realize that millions of Americans are suffering as a result of institutionalized racism.
“Schools like the University of Portland are the best places to bring these realities to the surface,” he says. “I would encourage all students to read and understand the reality of the situation of racism so that we call can become part of a meaningful solution.”
