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Registration is open for the Alabama Living Legacy Pilgrimage March 20-24, 2019! Register today!

12/6/2018

1 Comment

 
March 20-24, 2019, we'll be traveling to Alabama for a four-day Living Legacy Pilgrimage. We'll gather in Birmingham and visit the historic 16th Street Baptist Church, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth's Bethel Baptist Church, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. 

In Montgomery, we'll visit Maya Lin's Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center. We'll see where The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led his congregation and where the Selma to Montgomery March ended at the steps of the Alabama State Capitol building, and where Mrs. Rosa Parks chose to sit on a bus sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the most effective boycotts ever instigated. Included in our visit to Montgomery is the newly opened Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, otherwise known as the Lynching Memorial. 

We'll visit Selma, where Bloody Sunday, Turn-around Tuesday, the death of Unitarian Universalist minister James Reeb, and finally the successful Selma to Montgomery March changed the course of history, although not before another Unitarian Universalist, Viola Liuzzo died at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. 

From there, we'll travel to Marion, Alabama, where Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed by a state police officer, and the idea for the Selma to Montgomery March was born as mourners considered marching Jimmie Lee's body to the state capitol in Montgomery. 

Don't miss this important Pilgrimage!

MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION
Picture
EJI National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama
1 Comment
Abby Arnold
1/27/2020 06:46:45 pm

I was privileged to be on the Living Legacy Pilgrimage in March 2019, and it was a life-changing experience in many ways. I learned so much about the enslavement of African people here in the US, how it continues today through mass incarceration, and what I can do to make a difference. Not only did we visit so many historical sites, but we learned of what happened there directly from people with lived experience as participants in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Our tour guide, Joseph Selmon, was a child who participated in the demonstration in Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham. We had dinner with Anthony Liuzzo, who told us about growing up without his martyred mother. JoAnn Bland taught us about Selma.

The leadership of Rev. Hope Johnson and her sister Janice Johnson was powerful and inspiring. Our experience was enriched by the song leadership of Matt Wroba. How can you come out of the National Memorial to Justice and Peace without having a way of integrating the experience into your spirit? Song has that power to turn a wrenching emotional toll into the strength for making change.

After learning at the Legacy Museum, I feel able to argue with anyone on earth about the need for justice through reparations for slavery. After walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I am inspired to add my feet and my voice to the movement for justice and the resulting reconciliation.

I saw how Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's church is directly at the foot of the Alabama State Capitol, and realized the powerful message that the Baptist Church sent to the state when Dr. King was given that pulpit.

One of my favorite places was the Lowndes County Interpretation Center, where we learned about the barriers to voting, such as the literacy test, which was impossible to pass. In a room of sculptures we could experience walking "with" the Selma to Montgomery March.

The trip was well-organized and comfortable at all times. My fellow pilgrims were great.

Since returning from the Pilgrimage, I've had one-on-one (two or three) conversations with over 100 friends and family members to tell them what I've learned and to engage them in the cause of justice. I also gave a sermon at my church about how we can repair the sins of the past and end white supremacy. I know now how much more I have to learn, and to do, to apologize for the privilege I have unfairly assumed, and repair the damage handed down from generation to generation.

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