Civil Rights Trip, notes on day three

On the third day of the 2013 Civil Rights Trip, students spent the morning at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hub of anti-bias education and anti-hate activism for the past forty years.

 

 

There, they met with hate crimes investigator Anthony Griggs, about the realities of contemporary hate crime and organized extremist and hate groups in the US.

 

 

 

 

Students also talked with Ashley Jackson, who is working on the Center's LGBT Rights team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside the SPLC is the Civil Rights Memorial designed by Maya Lin, where, in what has become a Gordon tradition, the group posed for a photo. When this year's photo was posted on Facebook, one eighth grade parent spoke for many others when she commented 'I've been waiting for this shot for many years'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trip had a new stop in Montgomery this year, the Greyhound Bus Terminal where Freedom Riders were beaten while attempting to integrate the bus waiting room in 1961. A few weeks ago, the eighth grade met with Freedom Rider James Zwerg via Skype. Students recognized how Zwerg, along with the SPLC's Anthony Griggs, modeled two ways that white men can work against racial injustice.