The last museum of the trip was Soulsville, USA - The Stax Museum of American Soul Music. The museum was a refreshing breath after a week of soaking myself in the blood-stained history of America's civil rights struggle.

One of the exhibits in the museum described the Stax artists as powerfully raw musicians, which is why the term "Soul music" made so much sense. The museum also told me that Soul music was deeply influenced by the gospel songs of the black churches. Now that was something I understood completely ... Music seems to unwrap the heart in a way that spoken word can't.

One of my favorite songs is "My Soul Cries" by Misty Edwards (a worship leader at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City), and it speaks of exposing the deepest desires of the heart. The Civil Rights Movement is so powerful because it was so genuine. It came from the deep desire of the heart for justice ... for hope. To understand the depth of the Movement, I had to stare it in the face. I couldn't read it in a textbook, I had to hear it. I had to hear the stories, I had to hear the songs, and I had to stand on the sacred ground where everyday heroes walked.

So far, every time I have told someone about my trip, I have told them that it changed my life. I can tell they don't really understand what I mean even though I try to explain it ... because it's hard to explain. How do you tell someone that you developed a deeper hunger for life? That you were ground farther into your resolve for making a difference in the world? That within the course of one week, humanity's deep longing for freedom finally made sense to you? That the passion in the souls of the foot soldiers grabbed ahold of your heart? That your faith was strengthened because you saw what it could actually do? The faith of Dr. King ... the faith of Rev. Graetz ... that same faith lives in me. That faith moved a mountain of injustice, and there are still more mountains to move.

I believe wholeheartedly that my spring break was spent in the best way possible ... in a true journey of the soul.

You know what has always irked me until this day? The song "Ooh Child." Does it bother anyone else that the song is so happy? The words to the song, the time in which it was written, have always seemed to contradict its rather catchy and optimistic beat. But today it all became clear. Call it an "aha moment" if you want.

Today one of the guys on the trip, Ron, pulled some strings and got us free donuts from a shop called Donutso. Let it be known, I'm a bit of a donut snob. I don't eat just anyone's donuts, and I will drive miles to get good ones. It was so much fun. All of us were sitting together in the tiny donut shop eating AMAZING donuts and cheering for SMU. It's a small matter to make us so happy, but if you think about it, this couldn't have happened fifty years ago.

"Ooh Child," was playing when we got back on the bus and it felt so authentic. I think it may have been written after a moment like this.

Further into the day we went to the Stax Museum, which is the Soul Music Museum. Isaac Hayes' mess of a vehicle is in there. It has custom-made wheels, gold design, a white furry interior, a refrigerator, and a mini television. It was a mess, but I'm not mad at him. The Stax was really cool for a number of reasons. All of these people are artists, and I was able to see how they used their craft to catalyze social change during the Movement. It was really encouraging and inspiring to see that, even if I'm coming at change from a different artistic avenue.

Secondly, all throughout this trip, I've been saying how proud I am of my Black predecessors and all of the people who fought for Civil Rights. Today, it clicked: I'm one of them. So is everyone on the trip. So, in addition to being proud of the people who came before us, I'm proud of us. By coming on this trip we did a really beautiful thing, and I have no doubt that we will leave the road behind us glittering with beautiful and meaningful moments.

"You cannot know where you are going, until you know where you have been."

As I read those words on the poster, I began to reflect on my experience on this trip. It's hard to put into words just how amazing and life-altering this trip has been for me. Having the opportunity to hear the many untold stories from people who lived in a time of unjust laws and harsh treatment was a good experience as well as a sad one.

Being able to witness the stories of those who proudly fought for equality saddens me only because many of their stories go untold. Many in my generation do not know the other civil rights leaders and groups like the foot soldiers in Alabama or Medgar Evers or the three men who lost their lives in Philadelphia, Mississippi, trying to help blacks have the same rights to vote.

I have been to eight cities this week and have learned so much history. The greatest words I heard came from our many guest speakers. When our speakers were asked why they fought for equality and justice for all, without hesitation they said, "I did it for you." They fought for the generations that would come after them so that we could live without limitations.

The other day, the group's reflection conversation led to the discussion of how committed the people who lived in the civil rights movement were to ensure that life would get better for all if they continued to fight for rights. The group was later asked, what are we willing to commit to in today's society to continue the fight for complete equality?

I did not say anything that day, because I was not sure. However, today I feel that the biggest committment I could make is telling everyone what I witnessed on this trip. Telling the stories of the people I have met and showing their faces from the photos I have with them. This experience has changed me and I am ready to walk on the path of change, and maybe, just maybe, I can make a difference, like those before me.

I am finally able to put a face to so many names I've learned since when I was a little kid. Growing up, I was only able to scratch the surface of great African-American leaders, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Since then, I have had this huge void in my storyline as far as who I am and where I came from. This trip has not only filled that hole, but it is now overflowing.

I have been blessed with the opportunity to meet so many freedom fighters who fought physically and mentally for me to have a peaceful life. I was able to finally tell someone "Thank You!" Thank you for thinking of me while fighting for justice and equality for all people.

As the trip begins to wind down, we took a break to hang out on Beale Street. We found an exciting place that had karaoke and live music! As we began to dance and sing with the other people inside the hang-out spot, I looked around at all of the faces. I saw blacks, whites, Hispanics and everything in between. It was so beautiful I began to tear up. It was then that I realized, "This is what they died for. This is the life they dreamed for all of us to enjoy!"

Today we visited the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the location where Dr. King was shot. The hotel has been turned into the national Civil Rights Museum. This was an amazing experience; however, as one of my fellow pilgrims pointed out, the title is wrong. The museum limits its history to only Black Americans, beginning in 1619, with the first shipment of slaves into America, and focuses primarily on the Southern involvement.

By some stroke of divine blessing, Ray Jordan found a man in the museum who was one of the founding members of SNCC. His name was Aaron Johnson. He took the time and spoke to us. He said that the Civil Rights movement was not just a movement for Black people. He said that it was so an integrated group like ours could go on a trip like this. He told us to remember how fragile justice and equality are, and as hard as his generation fought to earn it, we had to fight just as hard to keep it.

He had just published a book and stayed behind to sign them. I told him I was a dance major and he wrote in mine, "As a young student, you are majoring in dance. Dancing speaks movement and joy. I pray that you will move the world forward. It is in you." I felt completely validated as a dancer and a person when I read that. He was such a lovely man.

I walked through the museum, and I was surprised and happy at how many of the names I knew, many of them only because of this class and this trip. I followed the path to the room where Martin Luther King Jr. was staying his last night alive. I walked slowly, mentally asking so many questions. What would have happened if Martin had exercised his legal right to stay in the hotel across town in the white neighborhood? He had earned it. Why didn't he fight it when they told him to leave? Why didn't he get a different room at the Lorraine? Why did he take the time to drink a cup of coffee, and could he have escaped death if he would have taken his coffee black instead of polluting it with cream and sugar? What would have happened if they had told Mahalia Jackson to sing "Precious Lord" the night before?

I created a scenario in which he went inside to get a jacket, spilled coffee on his shirt and had to change, by the time he was ready to re-emerge, the assassin had gotten bored and lazy and walked out on his opportunity. There was something inside of me that tried desperately to find a way to prevent his death. But in the end it was only wishful thinking about a past that could not be changed. Hate ruins lives.

If I've learned nothing else from this trip I walk away with that. I looked out of the window to the spot on the balcony where he fell. There's a stain on the ground. I don't know if it was blood, rust, debris from construction, or maybe an image that my mind created, but that was it for me. It had started to rain. I put my fingertips on the window, and God and I cried together.

We are on our way to Oxford, Mississippi, and the University of Mississippi.

I was 12 years old when James Meredith was admitted to Ole Miss, and for some reason it was one of the events I remember the most from the 1960s. Maybe because I can remember watching it on TV with my mom and remember her saying over and over, "This is so wrong."

On October 1, 1962, Meredith became the first black student at the University of Mississippi after being barred from entering in the fall of 1961. His enrollment, firmly opposed by segregationist Governor Ross Barnett, sparked riots on the Oxford campus and required enforcement by U.S. Marshals and later by U.S. Army military police, the Mississippi Army National Guard and the U.S. Border Patrol. (In photo: In the fall of 1961 Meredith was blocked by the Governor of Mississippi from entering this Ole Miss building.)

Today, Ole Miss has over 12,000 undergraduates, with an African-American population of over 15 percent. It is home to the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation. The Institute's mission is to "foster reconciliation and civic renewal wherever people suffer as a result of racial discrimination or alienation, and promote scholarly research, study and teaching on race and the impact of race and racism."

We hear about the institute's wonderful work from Executive Director Susan Glisson and visiting professor Rita Bender, who is Michael Schwerner's widow. Mrs. Bender is there with her husband to teach a class on the true horrors and suffering African-Americans endured under segregation.

So have things really changed at Ole Miss? It looked and sounded like it. And a lot of the credit from Ms. Glisson went to SMU's own Dr. R. Gerald Turner, who was Chancellor of Ole Miss from 1984 to 1995.

One example, their mascot. Ole Miss' sports teams are known as the Ole Miss Rebels. Their mascot was Colonel Reb, who was officially retired from the university in 2003 because of negative connotations with the Old South. The school in 1997 ended the waving of Confederate flags at sporting events. Several possible mascots have been suggested and are currently being voted on by Ole Miss students.

The No. 1 vote getter?

Admiral Ackbar, whose credentials as a rebel include being leader of the Rebel Alliance in the fictional "Star Wars" universe.

The highlight of this trip has been getting the chance to meet some of the most amazing people I've ever known. Don't get me wrong, the museums and tours have been wonderful, but they don't seem to compare to the look in these people's eyes and the strength that radiates from them.

I am truly in awe of the rich heritage we've gotten a chance to be a part of ... the passion of a few individuals that challenges the very foundations of my thoughts. These foot soldiers and eyewitnesses really believed in something ... they fought for something. Each one has both a story and a message for us.

The best part about history coming alive in a trip like this is the empowerment that it brings to your heart. Hearing the stories doesn't just cement events in your mind or put a face to the words that you've been reading ... history becomes contagious.

Listening to Rita Bender and her husband tonight (Rita is the widow of one of the three civil rights activists who were murdered in 1964 in Philadelphia, Mississippi) made me realize that the Civil Rights Movement wasn't just an event that people participated in ... it wasn't a meeting to attend or a boycott to follow or a leader to listen to ... it was a way of life.

People had a resolve in their hearts that they weren't going to tolerate the injustice anymore. They made up their minds that they were going to change something - and keep on changing somethings for as long as they could. Those civil rights activists are STILL civil rights activists ... they are parceling out that energy to anyone who will pick up the mantle. They keep looking me in the eye and telling me not to be silent - to change something. They insist that it's my time now, and what am I going to do about that?

I want that kind of passion and drive in my life. I want to catch the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement. I've lived my entire life learning how to be passionate about Christ and how to be excited for my future and the people whose lives I want to touch - but why should my only passion be to know Christ more? Why can't it be to change the world? Maybe putting feet to my faith is a whole lot simpler than I thought it was. Maybe I was born to shake something.

Because I cannot do everything,
I will not neglect to do the something I can do.
- Helen Keller

Today, on the penultimate day of the Civil Rights Pilgrimage, we spent some time in the Archives at the University of Mississippi library. We're here in Oxford because of the James Meredith story. He was the first African American to attend Ole Miss (1962), and it took a federal court order and military support to make it happen. Since those days, Ole Miss has made significant strides in leading for racial reconciliation.

The director of the archives gave an informative presentation, using lots of primary source documents from the archives. One piece particularly caught my attention. A mimeographed biblical "exposition" from the Klan about why races should be segregated, i.e. "what the Bible says" about race.

The paper listed several scriptures from the Old Testament. As I scanned the verses, I thought about how it is possible for people so badly to misread scripture. The history of the use of the Bible in antebellum arguments is a complex one in itself. Mark Noll, well-known historian of Christianity, has written has written extensively on this point.

Reading these verses today reminds me of how our own current particular contexts strongly help to shape the way we read scripture. It is no secret that even among Christians who take the most traditional view, there can be wide disagreement on particular passages, even when everyone believes fully that the Bible is God's Word. I am not engaging in a counsel of despair. I'm simply acknowledging that biblical interpretation is not as straightforward as it sometimes seems.

That point acknowledged, I'm still amazed at how segregationist Christians could read the Bible as they did. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:3 about tearing down strongholds and taking every thought captive to Christ. In 2 Thessalonians 2 he refers to the "mystery of lawlessness," or, as earlier English versions had it, the "mystery of iniquity." Off and on I ponder these phrases for what light they shed on the brute fact that sincere people can be sincerely wrong and sometimes in truly chilling ways.

The more distance we have between our own feelings and values and whatever topic of discussion we're engaging, the more "rational" and objective we can appear to be. The more our own feelings and values are caught up in the issue - the more at stake we have - the harder it is to be detached and "rational." And here the mystery of iniquity enters.

I come to the end of this day of the pilgrimage thinking about the mystery of iniquity that twists otherwise good people into upholding certain ideas and convictions that are truly reprehensible. As I think about what the archivist showed us today, it's easy for me to put extreme distance between myself and the segregationist Christians who thought the Bible really taught what they thought it taught.

And then I remember that that same mystery works in me as well, not on race, but on some other issue on which I perhaps feel vulnerable and threatened. We must always remember this propensity in the human heart. Lord, have mercy on us.

Our day started at the Rosa Parks Museum operated by Troy University. Most of the tour guides in Montgomery greet you at the first of their talk and say "Welcome to the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement."

With all the wonderful people who did so many significant things in the struggle against segregation, I asked, why do Montgomerians think their home is the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement? Their answer: Rosa Parks. Enough said.

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger - which at that time was a local city ordinance that blacks would have to give up their seats to let whites sit in the front of the bus. (In photo, the bus stop where Rosa Parks boarded.)

Parks' act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement, and Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. It also launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a watershed moment in the struggle to gain equal rights for all Americans.

From Montgomery we headed to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in Neshoba County to meet with Jewell McDonald at the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church (photo left). We also got to meet Fenton DeWeese, a member of the Philadelphia Coalition and my daughter's father-in-law's first cousin (that small world thing.) If you have seen the movie "Mississippi Burning," you may know the Hollywood version of the story.

On June 21, 1964, three young civil rights workers were murdered in Neshoba County. The trio had come here to investigate the burning of the Mt. Zion Methodist Church in the Longdale community off of Mississippi 16 east. The night the church was burned, parishioners were beaten, some severely - including Mrs. McDonald's mother and father.

The murders of Michael Schwerner, 24, James Chaney, 21, and Andrew Goodman, 20, were part of a plot hatched by the Lauderdale County unit of the Ku Klux Klan and carried out by members of the Neshoba County unit. The civil rights workers were part of a broader national movement that hoped to begin a voter registration drive in the area, part of the Mississippi Summer Project that became known as Freedom Summer.

On June 20, 2004, the Philadelphia Coalition and the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church hosted a 40th anniversary memorial for Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. At the 2 p.m. service at the Neshoba County Coliseum, the Coalition read its resolution calling for justice in the case:

Forty years ago, on June 21, 1964, three young men, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in Neshoba County by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The state of Mississippi has never brought criminal indictments against anyone for these murders - an act of omission of historic significance. There is, for good and obvious reasons, no statute of limitations on murder. This principle of law holds that anyone who takes the life of another person for any reason not provided by law is never immune from prosecution, no matter how remote in time.

With firm resolve and strong belief in the rule of law, we call on the Neshoba County District Attorney, the state Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Justice to make every effort to seek justice in this case. We deplore the possibility that history will record that the state of Mississippi, and this community in particular, did not make a good faith effort to do its duty.

We state candidly and with deep regret that some of our own citizens, including local and state law enforcement officers, were involved in the planning and execution of these murders. We are also cognizant of the shameful involvement and interference of state government, including actions of the State Sovereignty Commission, in thwarting justice in this case.

Finally, we wish to say to the families of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, that we are profoundly sorry for what was done in this community to your loved ones. And we are mindful of our responsibility as citizens to call on the authorities to make an effort to work for justice in this case. Continued failure to do so will only further compound the wrong.

We, the undersigned, call on those in authority to use every available resource and do all things necessary to bring about a just resolution to this case.

In 2005, a Neshoba County jury found Edgar Ray Killen guilty in the brutal deaths of civil rights activists. That trial, and the community organizing that helped prompt it, were important steps toward justice and reconciliation. In 2006, the group successfully lobbied for a bill establishing a law that requires Civil Rights history to be taught in all public schools.

The great work of the Philadelphia Coalition continues today and is helping the local community, the state of Mississippi and maybe even the country begin to heal after decades of segregation and suffering.

I have a problem.

Today we visited the archives library at Ole Miss. Because of their history of race-related conflict, Ole Miss has made a severe attempt to gather the tangible history of their conflict-related past. The woman in charge, curator perhaps is the right word, Jennifer Ford, pulled together a few items from their collection, items from slavery to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

This series included a few postcards. I tried to imagine receiving one of them. I became angry at the hypothetical friend that I created for such a situation. I had a long and angry speech prepared in the event that this imaginary friend ever materialized beginning with, "Have you lost your ever-loving, God-forsaken mind?!" and ended with, "Walk away." These postcards portrayed caricatures of African Americans smiling stupidly, stealing watermelon, being lazy. The kicker, the postcard was signed with the word "love." Tell me, where was love in that?

Further down the table we came to the religious section. I'll say it again because I don't think you got it, THE RELIGIOUS SECTION. I placed in my hands pamphlets with titles such as, "The Christian View on Racial Segregation," and "Racial Segregation and Love," and "Biblical Justification for Racial Segregation." Let me tell you what I know about Christianity. I'll tell you that Jesus says that the greatest commandments are love the God and love your neighbor. I'll tell you that Jesus said to love your enemies. I'll tell you that the Bible says, "For God so loved the world that he sent his only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have life abundantly." (John 3:16 - emphasis added to make a point that I think God himself made blatantly clear.) So as for this Biblical justification for hatred ... to my unknown predecessors I ask, What Bible were you reading?

Before this moment, I never really realized how convenient it was that Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy and many of the participants of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s were Christians. How ironic is it that this battle for Civil Rights was fought between a group of people who claimed to love God, who were commanded to love their neighbors and their enemies?

I realized the flaws in the logic that had governed my life and determined to make the change. We are all just people, all deserving of God's love, all deserving of each other's love.

We shall overcome.

We SHALL overcome some day.

As we sang linked together in a circle, right arm over left, I begin to think about the journey thus far. Words began to flood my mind and tears came to my eyes as we sang this song in unison.

History.
Pain.
Courage.
Motivation.
Determination.
Forgotten.
Patience.
Patience.
Patience.

I could not get the word patience out of my head. The amount of patience each soldier involved in the movement exercised is immeasurable. It is also difficult to put into words how this experience has touched and changed my life; I certainly feel like it cannot be quantified.

Over the course of these past 5 days, we have met those who were involved, in varying capacities, during the civil rights movement. It has been such an honor that I could have never imagined. No one was bitter or angry, but more so encouraging and comforting. The love and enthusiasm that radiated out of each person we have met on this journey has been powerful. They want us, the 2010 pilgrims, to remember to do OUR BEST in all we do, NEVER give up, and fight for what we believe in.

Our tour guide while in Selma, JoAnne Bland, said, "You, too, can make a change, you just have to say something." I have written down this statement, along with countless others, to hold me with me for the rest of my years.

Hopefully soon I will be able to find more words to express my feelings and the power of this journey throughout the Deep South. Until then ...

We. Shall. Overcome.

Today we drove from Montgomery to Philadelphia, Mississippi. The Philadelphia of the South is not the Philadelphia that I grew up in and learned to love, but it's interesting and by the end of the night earned my appreciation.

Along the way we watched the movie "Murder in Mississippi," about three Civil Rights workers - two of them white - who were murdered just outside of Philadelphia. We stopped in front of Mount Zion United Methodist Church, which is at the top of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods.

I'll admit, that drive is not an experience that I would be eager to repeat, regardless of the glory that was waiting at the other end. I cannot even begin to imagine making that trek alone at night like they did in the movie. One of the first things you see is a memorial to the three workers, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, who was only 20 when he was murdered.

The first person we heard speak once inside the church was Mayor James Young. He is Philadelphia's first Black mayor. It was absolutely inspiring to hear him speak. He was so down-to-earth and really candid.

He said that one thing we forget about the heroes of the Civil Rights movement of the '60s was that they had a tremendous amount of patience. They accepted the fact that the freedom they were seeking wasn't going to come in a short amount of time, but they were willing to put in the required amount of work and wait for the results.

One of the problems with our generation is that we live in an instant society. "You microwave everything," he said. "You don't have time to be patient because you're busy doing ..." Personally, I know I am typically stressing out over how much I have to do. (Yes, I realize it's counterproductive. It's a problem that needs my attention.)

He went on to say that our generation deals with identity. We have to find out who we are to determine what to fight for.

Next we heard from two members of the Philadelphia Coalition, a group of citizens who organized as a response to the murder of the civil rights workers with the goal of demanding justice. They told us about where they were the night of the murders and how the murders affected them.

They were really young when the murders happened. One of them told us that she was supposed to get married a few months after the murders took place. She was afraid that the KKK would come and burn her house, so she ran and hid her clothes in a box in the chicken house across the yard from their house.

I don't think I ever comprehended how intensely that type of racial hatred affected people's lives. It extends far past the lunch counters and buses. Honestly, some days I don't use either, and segregation sounds like more of an inconvenience, but the more I learn on the trip, the more I see how awful and flat-out wrong it truly was. I cannot even begin to imagine the strength of the people who were forced to endure it.

We closed the night with reflection over the last three days. We talked about what we were committed to or what we would change regarding the movement, which is still a work in progress.

After many of us spoke, Ray said that what he noticed was that we all needed to self-heal. The movement brought with it a great burden, and a lot of pain. One of the members of the Philadelphia Coalition dubbed us the SMU Coalition. "You're making a change and you don't even realize it," he says.

We all stood in a circle and linked arms, right over left, the way they did at the strategy meetings back in the day, and in the church that held within its walls so much history, we sang the theme song of the Civil Rights Movement, "We Shall Overcome."

I lack a vocabulary vast enough to describe the feeling in the room. People always talk about the power of numbers. From a strategic point of view, I get it. Your chances of success are greater if your size is larger, but tonight, I realize there is more to it than that.

The symbol of the Black Power movement is the raised fist. I read somewhere that it represented many individual fingers coming together to create something strong. That was the power I felt tonight. All of us coming from different backgrounds, different histories, different cultures and linking together creating something strong and something beautiful - this is the way things should be.

In Montgomery, Alabama, there was a wonderful circular walkway behind the Parsonage where Martin Luther King, Jr. lived while he was the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

There were "words" in the cement in front of six benches. They were as follows: Unity. Understanding. Hope. Peace. Equality. Forgiveness.

(Photos below represent the words - except for "Forgiveness," as this concept is an ongoing goal.)







UNITY












UNDERSTANDING













HOPE ("Until justice rolls down like water, the struggle must continue.")











PEACE






EQUALITY

Today is day five on the Civil Rights Pilgrimage. We visited the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy State University in Montgomery, Alabama. Once again the list of the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights movement is drastically widened.

Hearing the tales of the bus boycott, we learned the names of four females who were also monumental in the desegregation of public buses. Mary Louise Smith, Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin and Aurelia S. Browder were each one of many African-Americans who refused to give up their seats as others boarded the bus months before Rosa Parks did the same.

While Rosa Parks served as the face of the movement, Browder vs. Gayle was the ruling that overturned the dehumanizing system of segregated seating. However, this case is not written in the textbooks, nor are the names of these women enshrined on any monuments as homage.

Then, there is the case of Medgar Evers, Jimmie Lee Jackson and other martyrs in the Civil Rights movement known as foot soldiers. All of these brave souls gave their lives for the revolution - and sparked key dates and events that helped make the Civil Rights Act possible. However, their stories are not in the textbooks.

In a day and age when violence plagues the public schools and African-American students struggle with ideals about their self-image (desperately trying to look more and more like the Anglo-American features that are accepted as beauty), why is this history hidden from them?

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. changed the world and was a remarkable leader; Rosa Parks stood up for her rights and sparked a system of change. Their stories are well known in many schools. However, until the stories of the average men, women, teens and children of all shades and creeds who came together to stand up against hate are encompassed in the curriculum, the well-known leaders like Dr. King and Mrs. Parks shall continue to be "the Lone Ranger" pillars in the minds of students.

This, in turn, breeds the thought path that the Dixie monster of racism and segregation was defeated by a select handful of individuals, when in actuality it was overcome by the blood, tears and efforts of thousands of everyday individuals.

History reminds us that the dark, bloodthirsty hatred that stained the history of the Southern past was systematically taught; it did not occur overnight. Thus, the importance of a continual lesson of love and nonviolence - which many foot soldiers desperately fought for into their graves - should also be continually taught in order to reach the society of equality and tolerance in which we believe.

No words can explain the past couple of days with my new 30-some odd friends. For once in my life, I am left full of emotions, but I remain incapable of identifying what I'm feeling.

Since our departure we have ventured through Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi, discovering the dark gloomy past of some of these frozen-in-time towns. As we traveled through unchartered lands, I was thrust back into the unknowing that plagued the '50s and '60s. Nothing was unchanged. The forest that lined the streets was crying out to me with the voices of those who disappeared while seeking refuge from evil. Chills and uncertainty have become commonplace, but peace is never too far off.

Today as we headed to Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, my body became overwhelmed with discomfort. For we had just finished watching "Murder in Mississippi," and I knew what horrors had happened on the same road we traveled. I was shaken. I could just imagine how scared the three young men would have been. There was no protection, no safe haven.

As we stepped into the church I was immediately overtaken with peace. The residents and mayor of Philadelphia had such calmness about them that it began to radiate throughout the room.

This has been the case throughout the trip. The people in each town have embraced us with such hospitality. The sense of community, unity and hope has been prevalent. The history that they shared has been life-changing, and I will never be the same again. It was people who were my age and many times younger who changed America forever. It was their drive and persistence for a better future that made them put everything on the line for you and me.