Over spring break, I had the privilege of taking the Civil
Rights Bus Tour to the cities of Jackson, Selma, Birmingham, Nashville,
Greenwood, and other small cities along the rode. For Spring 2015, I’ve be taking the Civil
Rights Movement class taught by Dr. Krochmal. Originally, I saw it fit core
requirements I needed, but the 60s is my favorite era in American History when
it comes to the music styles and wars – all round, I found this time extremely
intriguing, so I decided to enroll in a 4000 level history course even though I
am a Biology major.
The first day of class I realized this class was going to be
very different from my other classes, it was a discussion-based course, as
compared to biology’s lecture-based courses. I almost felt like I was catching
up constantly in discussion because by the time I understood what they were
talking about, they’d be onto another topic.
Homework-wise, we had a lot of assigned reading from three
novels that all ended around the same time – at spring break. We were told early on in the semester that we
were required to go on a bus tour over spring break, but I just shallowly
thought that I would see a few new places and meet a historical person or two
and then return to TCU and continue on with my life – wow was I wrong.
I had noticed throughout the semester, my classmates and I
became more passionate about the readings and inequality that existed in the
south. Violence, murder, and revengeful
acts that we would read about caused our discussion to become very heated
because we would be so upset at the treatment of people.
When we finally reached Jackson – we saw the city. Not just
looked around, we saw it with our
eyes wide open and our minds fully educated.
The city of Jackson, MS has not recovered from the movement 50 years
ago. Builds are the same from the 50s, many homes are abandoned, and the people
are completely segregated. The aftermath of the movement caused many whites to
move to the outercity suburbs and blacks remained in the city. After exploring
the city for 7 hours, I hadn’t seen a white person until I saw a single man at
the bus stop around 4:30 in the afternoon – that wouldn’t happen in Fort Worth.
Selma, Nashville, and the Mississippi River Delta all showed
the same results. White people move, black people remained. No matter how much progress historians and
high school education says the movement has made – that’s a lie. The legal boundaries, such as the Jim Crow
Laws, may no longer exist, but our parent’s generations and our generations
still have a “white only” mind. The physical signs may have been taken down in
the 60s, but changing the mindsets of people takes a lot longer than a year or
two.
It’s just disappointing to physically see such a glorified movement
through the eyes of people who are still living through the movement.
