Civil Rights Trail trip is historical and personal for VCU students

By Joan Tupponce

Walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, Alexandra Hardesty thought about civil rights leader John Lewis, who tried with hundreds of fellow marchers to cross the bridge in March 1965 on what became known as Bloody Sunday.

"Walking the footsteps of someone I had looked up to for so long, now as a college student, was absolutely memorable," said Hardesty, who has been inspired since youth by the late activist and politician.

The Virginia Commonwealth University senior participated in the Civil Rights Trail trip this summer from the Department of Political Science, part of VCU's College of Humanities and Sciences. The 10-day journey visited six cities, giving the dozen students a meaningful combination of experiential learning and American history.

"It is one thing to read about history, but it is quite a different experience to live history," said assistant professor Jatia Wrighten, Ph.D. Students get a "newfound perspective on literature and government that they would not otherwise have."

To be eligible for the Civil Rights Trail trip, students are required to take two political science courses: The Politics of the Civil Rights Movement, which is taught by Wrighten, and The Politics of Memory, which is taught by associate professor and associate department chair Alexandra Reckendorf, Ph.D. The department collaborates with VCU's Global Education Office to offer students the study away experience.

The six cities followed the path of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from his birth city of Atlanta to Memphis, Tennessee where he was assassinated in 1968. It also included the Alabama cities of Tuskegee, Selma, Birmingham and Montgomery, encompassing historical locations such as the Rosa Parks Museum and the Legacy Museum, which explores enslavement, lynching and mass incarceration.

Hardesty felt a particular kinship to the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site: Her great-grandfather was one of the pioneering Black aviators.

"Learning about his history connected his past with my present, expanding my relationship with my Black heritage," she said.

Wrighten emphasized how such visits give students a deeper understanding of Black history in America.

"Often, we think of it as something that happened hundreds of years ago, and with this trip, students realize how relevant and important this history is to what is going on today, but also that Black history is American history," Wrighten said. "Students also recognized how policy still largely reflects this history in the American South."

During the trip, Reckendorf scheduled a talk with civil rights leader Annie Pearl Avery at Paschal's Restaurant in Atlanta, a famous meeting place of King and his inner circle.

"It just so happened while we were there, so was politician and civil rights activist Andrew Young. So we got two talks," Wrighten said. "Andrew Young was gracious enough to come over and speak with the students, which was amazing and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Young fielded questions after talking with students.

"They asked whether he was ever afraid and if he and others knew that what they were doing was going to be a movement," Wrighten said. "They asked if Dr. King was a nice guy. I think the realization of how young the people at the forefront of this movement were resonated with students the most."

It certainly resonated with Hardesty, who noted that she is not much older than Avery was when joining the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that advocated for change.

"Much of the fight from the youth is erased from the mainstream narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, so learning about her experience as a young activist was refreshing," said Hardesty, who is majoring in political science with a concentration in civil rights, along with minoring in sociology.

She added the trip "has ignited my passion to fight for our stories to be told" - a passion she brought with her to VCU.

"In middle school, I read a graphic novel series, 'March,' by John Lewis, and quickly fell in love with his story and his passion for social justice," Hardesty said. "Visiting quintessential locations, relevant to the movement I learned about through Lewis' writing when I was a kid, felt like a full-circle moment for me."