Some personal reflections and questions

All of this is a bit overwhelming – so many facts and experiences. It is hard to keep everything straight. However, the general civil rights narrative is coming together. However, I am glad this this tour is not going to end with a final exam.

During the last two days, we have gone from 1965 (the march from Selma to Montgomery) back to 1955 (the Montgomery bus boycott), then to 1963 (the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church and the murder of four innocent girls in Birmingham), and back to 1961 (the Freedom Riders).

It still amazes and troubles me how these events are mere shadows in my memory, even though I was alive through all of this. These events “that the whole world watched unfold” were somehow not watched in Northwestern Ohio. Last night we were privileged to hear Carolyn Maul McKinstry. At the age of 14, she participated in the children marches in Birmingham and was in the 16th Street Baptist Church when it was bombed. This first hand response of a woman my age was very moving. I keep remembering where I was and what I was thinking a doing in 1963.

Absent in our experiences are the voices of the white citizens in in Birmingham, Albany, Marion, and Montgomery. They came down on the wrong side of history – segregation formally failed. We have encountered African Americans who lived through and beyond segregation. How do the white Americans in these towns and cities process all of this? Even more absent are the white churches. You cannot understand the success of civil rights movement without the role of the black churches. Does this imply one can’t understand segregation without understanding the failure of white churches? How do white churches (and white Christians) understand their role before, during, and after the fall of formal segregation?

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