Day 4: Scaffolding

We began today touring the Rosa Parks Museum where we explored the history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. What particularly fascinated me was the involvement of every member of the community organizing in order to make the boycott sustainable for 381 days. The work of the community to provide an intricate transportation system capable of supplying the needs of the boycotters underlines how essential every person in the movement was.

I think the movement is often portrayed in a similar way to the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency. To summarize the theory quickly, it is the belief that the presidency can accomplish any tasks if they just try hard enough, much like the DC Superhero the Green Lantern who can make things out of nothing using only his mind and willpower. In my K-12 education, the movement was portrayed in a similar capacity where the movement was accomplished by the sheer willpower of Martin Luther King Jr. along with his leaders in the NAACP and the SCLC. I have learned these last few days that the movement was built, maintained, and continues by the power of individuals in their local communities.

Afterward, we traveled to Selma, where we met some of those individuals in a moment where John Lewis and Martin Luther King are often remembered. Joanne Bland, one of the original marchers on the infamous Bloody Sunday, showed us her hometown of Selma. We saw Brown Chapel AME Church, where the march from Selma to Montgomery began, and Ms. Bland had us grab rocks from the ground of where John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., and herself stood, and instructed us to always look at them to remember that we are history-makers.

Thus far I have carried many memories, books, and signatures, but now I will carry this physical element of the past. I would be remise to not at least mention that we had the opportunity to meet with Lynda Blackmon Lowery, who is Joanne’s sister and the youngest marcher. But what resonates with me the most is small pebble which has been treaded on countless times in the last 56 years. It is a living piece of history.

It is fitting that in my week of prayer, in which I have asked for wisdom as to how to carry-on the spirit of the movement, I have now received a part of this living history. This history lives because the movement and the heart of liberation has not yet come to a close. In a sense, we are all a part of a living history that is continually being added to. As we adopt the unfinished legacy, we ourselves become history-makers, and use that scaffolding for the future. I am thankful to now carry with me a piece of that scaffolding.

I pray now for that scaffolding which I cannot physically carry way. The pain and suffering of those brutalized by white supremacists and who suffered the trauma of segregation must be remembered. I pray for their memory to remain, because it is that memory which will determine me to ensure that the sins of my race are not repeated again, and to combat the present ones.

Matt Jenkins

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