Laura's Final Reflections

So many thoughts as this trip came to a close back in April. Those thoughts have stayed there, percolating in the months since. I am changed by this trip. How could I not be? My Dad and I put so many years of research and months of planning into it. Of course a trip like this is never what you think it will be, but I believe if your eyes and heart are open, it becomes what you need it to be. It tells you what you need to hear. 

I admit that I have a different viewpoint of the obstacles towards racial justice and equity in our society than I did at the beginning of this trip. Although this message is not new, it's one that was hammered home again and again during this trip: we have a long way to go. And I believe that we White moderates or White progressives, (especially in the North), continue to be a major barrier towards the sort of justice and equity I think many want to see come to fruition. I admit I went to the South to learn about the actions (or inactions) of "others," but what I really learned about was myself. Because, of course, real change starts from only one place: from inside ... 

King expressed a similar concern in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail": 

"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Many of my peers might look at this statement and not see themselves, but rather think of how "backwards" or wrong-headed the Southern White communities of the 1960's were in response to that particular chapter of the Black freedom struggle, but hasn't similar sentiment been said at our own dinner tables in response to the protests after Michael Brown's or George Floyd's murder? "I believe in what they're doing, but if only they weren't so loud, or destructive, or angry ..." I know I've heard these things said among my progressive peers. Many in my Seattle community want to see justice done, just not always at an inconvenience to them, ie: protests blocking I-5 traffic, or having that low income housing unit or needle exchange relocated in their neighborhood ... I'm not exempt from these thoughts and it's given me a lot to reflect on. It's easy to convince myself that I'm doing enough, all the while I'm hiding behind my iPhone screen or a book.

The other question I have been asking myself is one that we asked some of those we encountered in Alabama or Mississippi; the same question many accompanying us asked our tour guides: is there any hope?

For me the answer is yes. I feel it more strongly now than when I started this trip. And this is not because the stories we heard were less gruesome, or because the news on the ground in Mississippi shows that there is tangible progress towards equity and shared power. Quite the opposite. It is also not because I believe humans are inherently "good" or "bad" (whatever that means). Humans are just inherently ... human. They act to further their own survival, and many of us are willing to strive for that at the expense of others. What gives me hope is in the incredible stories of people who DID put justice and the collective whole ahead of their own survival. This heavy burden was then and still is disproportionately shouldered by Black, Indigenous and POC communities. In Memphis and Chicago in the 1890's, it was Ida B. Wells. In Alabama and Mississippi in the 1950's and 1960's, it was people like Fanny Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Medgar Evers, James Bevel. It was heroes we met who were mere children at the time: Jo Ann Bland and Hezekiah Watkins. But it was also the White students and young adults who did not directly have skin in the game, but who came to the South to join the cause because it was the right thing to do, people like Joan Trumpauer Mulholland who rejected the societal norms she was taught about Black inferiority, walked away from her family and joined the movement. Micky and Rita Schwerner, who moved to Meridian, Mississippi from the North to advance the voting rights of rural Black Southerners. The White and Black young people who were shipped off to Parchman Prison for their protests and so refused to be broken, that when their mattress were removed from their cells for their ongoing protests from behind their bars, they kept the guards up all night boisterously filling the prison halls with freedom songs.

So where do we go from here? I think there is no better summary of the path I hope to take than the words of Bryan Stevenson, legal advocate for Southern death row inmates, mastermind behind the Equal Justice Initiative and freedom warrior of our time. He says: 

Get proximate

Change the narrative

Stay hopeful

Learn to be uncomfortable 

I want to grow old knowing that I am the kind of person who will not only stand for something just and true, but will stand up for it. That I believe the only path forward towards these goals includes the collective, not just myself or the individual. And when I search deep for one of the fundamental people who has helped to instill this in me, it's my Dad. His endless curiosity to dig and uncover, his bravery to connect, confront and wrestle with the challenges of history and the present. His gift for connection with the humanity in all people. I saw this again and again on our trip. Going up to aging Civil Right icon Hezekiah Watkins in the Jackson Civil Rights Museum and asking hard questions. Breaking down and accepting comfort from one of the elderly staff in the Lynching Museum in Montgomery, so overcome by the power and grief of the stories told there. 

I love you Dad. This trip with you was the honor of a lifetime. Not just for the bravery of taking on the logistics and pedaling into the unknown, but of sharing yourself with me. I know that long after you're gone I will carry the memories of this trip with me. Not just the intense moments, but the joyful and humorous ones. You wearily singing the Cinderella theme song on mile 68 of our 72 mile biking day as we were near delirious with hunger and fatigue, "We can do it, we can do it, we can help our Cinderelly ..." Yucking it up with locals at dive diners and BBQ spots. Because the things I love most about you, those are the things I see in myself too. We are forever connected in that way. I had a moment of my own fear and grief waking up in the Memphis hotel on our last morning, because we had become so connected during this trip, never separate for more than a few minutes. And in that moment I not only couldn't imagine what my life would be like without you in it, but I couldn't even imagine how I was going to spend the days to come without you. 

This trip opened me up to the world around me like I have seldom had the experience to do. The overwhelming sentiment I walked away with was not grief or terror, but feeling wholly alive, with a sense of understanding that for me, meaning and joy are not fully possible without seeing and accepting all the messy parts of our world and myself. I promise to do my best to stand grounded on my own to feet and to carry on the tradition and truths spoken by the incredible individuals whose stories I have had the honor to listen to, past and present. May we all be brave in our own pursuits of connection, adventure, justice and joy. 

Thank you for listening. 

 

Day 12 (4/6/23): Memphis

Laura's Post (belatedly posted 7 months later)

Wow, I can't believe the last day of our journey. We were immersed in the rich history of Memphis, and some of the themes and lessons we had been learning were really illuminated during an amazing 2-hour breakfast at the Arcade Diner, one of the last surviving restaurants in this downtown neighborhoods of Memphis. We had the extreme honor of meeting with 4 heroes of the current day struggle to tell the truth about Black history in our nation. We met with Randy, Habiba, Iris and Sam, prior co-workers of our dear family friend Randall Mullins, all working on unearthing the history of and commemorating the lynchings that occurred in Memphis from Reconstruction on through the Lynching Site Project. We were given a gift by these four incredible individuals:

We moved from there to a spirited tour on foot through the streets of Memphis, led by Randy, our local historian, first on foot through the streets, intermittently singing, "Can't Turn Me Around" in the driving rain. We stopped at the church where the "I am a Man" sanitation worker strike that brought Dr. King to Memphis in his final days started, to the Ida B. Wells park and several of the lynching site markers that Randy and his team have worked diligently and persistently to erect. This is the story Ida B. Wells took on in the 1890's when she watched her dear friend Thomas Moss, a local Black grocery store owner, be lynched simply because he was causing competition for the White grocer. And yet the age-old propaganda that Black men are sexual predators was loosely used as justification for his killing. Ida B. Wells, using her platform as a journalist, called bullshit to this myth, a truth that caused her newspaper to be burned to the ground and caused her to have to flee town. 

I am struck again by how much resistance this group has met (from city park officials, local businesses, individuals), just to try and tell the story. There is clearly power in this story, and I think subconsciously or not, many of the White institutions of power must understand that to hear the whole truth would call into question our entire power structure, as it should. Randy and his team are working so hard ... 

Full of history and gratitude, we ended our time in Memphis by honoring Dr. King's last days. The hotel where he was assassinated on April 4, 1968 has been turned into a Civil Rights Museum. As we walked through together, it's amazing how we have come to recognize many of the faces and stories on these walls over the past 2 weeks. I spent years reading and learning about the stories of the Civil Rights movement in the South (about 4,000 pages), but what we have learned by tracing the path over these two weeks has been exponentially more than we ever could have learned from a book. Looking at the pictures on the wall of the museum, it's still impossible for us not to get choked up. 

I feel Dr. King knew his end was coming. He had mounting threats in the weeks leading up to his death, and the speech me made the night before he died was chilling; he basically gave his own eulogy. Rumor has it he was not feeling well, and not planning on attending the rally, but the crowd that had amassed was large and they were expecting him, so someone from his team came and got him and brought him to the church. I recommend you listen to the whole speech because it's incredible, but here's an excerpt of the Mountaintop Speech. 

As we ended our time at the museum, I knew but was not prepared for viewing the balcony where he took his last breath. As the story goes, he was standing on the railing calling down to the musician who would be playing at the upcoming rally, and he requested his favorite song by Mahalia Jackson, "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." As we walked through this part of the museum, that is what was playing overhead. As we have hopefully highlighted for you, Dr. King was only one person among thousands who encompassed this movement, but he was regardless a phenomenal human who inspired millions then, and just as many today. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final words to the public: 

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! 

And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man!  

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!"