Midd activists embark on civil rights tour

Author: Dina Magaril

While many in the Middlebury community commemorated Martin Luther King's Birthday by attending the ceremony at Mead Chapel, one group of students decided to take a trip to King's birthplace. Middlebury students, accompanied by Professor of History Jim Ralph '82 and Associate Professor of American Literature and Civilization Will Nash, traveled through Alabama and Georgia on a tour of civil rights monuments.

The trip, which was funded by the office of the Dean of the College, the Office for Institutional Diversity and PALANA, was created to give students at Middlebury the chance to see firsthand the experiences of the Civil Rights Movement. The trip was open to all Middlebury students and Ralph said he received more applications than funding allowed spaces. Other participants included student activists from colleges throughout the Northeast as well as groups who were committed to nonviolence as a way of advancing social change across the world. Though the Middlebury students picked to participate in the unique program were diverse in respect to their backgrounds, Ralph said each student was connected by his or her commitment to activism.

Bernard LaFayette, a good friend of Ralph's and an expert on the topic of civil rights, traveled with the Middlebury students for a majority of the trip. LaFayette was deeply involved in the civil rights movement throughout his life. He was one of the earliest participants in the movement against segregation in Nashville in 1960, a freedom rider and grass roots activist and one of the top assistants to Dr. Martin Luther King. LaFayette recalled many of his own experiences as he accompanied the students on their bus trip.

"The bus was used as a classroom," said Ralph, which meant the students were constantly stimulated throughout their four-day trip, which included stops in Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma and Atlanta. Once aboard the bus students watched a historical video about the city they were visiting and then discussed the footage. Students then had the opportunity to learn about these experiences firsthand from people who had actually lived them, like LaFayette. "I don't think public schools teach about this time period in history as well as they could. You know, we always learn about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X but we don't learn about the countless others who sacrificed their time, their energy and even their lives fighting for what is right," said Azaria Shaw '08, one of the students who attended the trip. In a conversation Ralph had with Nash, Ralph said Nash described the bus as a "rolling seminar," picking up bits of history from every person they met and every city visited.

Among the highlights was a stop in Selma, Ala., where students met a family who housed Dr. King in 1965 during the voting rights movement. Ralph described the trip as particularly vivid and memorable, as it fully engaged the students throughout their intense trip. Ralph hopes the program will be continued next year, giving more Middlebury students the chance to experience history where it originally occurred.