| Today was a very
busy and exciting day! After our drive from Atlanta to Montgomery, we
went to the Rosa Park Museum located on the exact spot where she created
a revolution on December 1, 1955. We watched an interesting reenactment
which showed exactly how the historic event occurred. We then went to
lunch at Martha’s Place Restaurant for some good Southern cooking. After
our meal, Martha spoke with us and conveyed her inspirational life
story. She was on welfare, depressed, and suicidal. She never lost her
dream of opening a restaurant so she put faith in her religion and
started slowly building the restaurant we ate in today. She reminded
each of us to believe in our potential. Then we went to the Southern
Poverty Law Center. We looked at their Civil Rights Memorial outside
which moved many participants of the trip. Then we went inside and saw a
video on the memorial called “Faces In The Water”. The short movie
focused on the lives of the many victims that lost their lives during
from the Civil Rights movement. Andrew Bleijwas from the Southern
Poverty Law Center met with us to have an indepth discussion about
current social injustice in America ranging from immigrant workers to
abuse at teenage “training” facilities. We learned about the valuable
work that the Southern Poverty Law Center does. We drove an hour to
Birmingham where we met with Colonel Stone Johnson in Freedom Park. Mr.
Johnson was involved in every major action taken for Civil Rights in
Birmingham. He had a ton of good historical information along with some
moral advice. What touched me the most was when he said “God is God for
everyone”. His courage and the ability to still love after being treated
so harshly is a beacon of hope for future generations. We ended the day
with some pizza at Mellow Mushroom and free time in Five Points part of
Birmingham. All in all, a really good day.
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