Every time I think of Martin Luther King Day, I remember two amazing trips that I took. One to the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta, the site of Martin Luther King's birth, and one to the National Civil Rights Museum in Tennessee, the site of his death. In Atlanta we took a tour of his childhood home guided by one of his childhood friends. They've preserved the street his house is on, almost exactly like it was when he was alive. People live there and rent the other houses on the street, but they have to keep the facades the way they were. Can you imagine living in one of those houses? I'd feel such a sense of history every day when I left my front door, and I'd hate all the tourists sauntering around. My brother and I both expressed the same feeling afterwards, we were there on a school day, and there were several school groups there of kids who were just learning it as history. We were both really moved by being there and all the little kids were running from display to display writing in their notebooks and talking to each other and having fun. I guess in the long run, it would be nice if we really could just look back on the civil rights movement as a closed chapter of history, but I don't know when that will be.
Visiting the Civil Rights Museum was just amazing. They have a display there with a bus just like the one Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of. If you were black at the time and wanted to ride the bus, you had to get on the front and pay, and then instead of walking back through the bus to the back, you had to get off the bus and walk around to the back doors and get on. So at the display at the museum, you can get on the bus and sit in the seats, and there are statues of the other people who would have been on the bus. If you sit in the front of the bus a recording of the driver's voice says to you what the driver would have said to Rosa Parks and what all of the other passengers would have said. Our tour guide got us to get on the bus and made us stay on the bus even when "everyone else" on the bus was yelling at us to get to the back. Even though it was just a simulation and the voices were just recorded, I wanted to burst into tears and run off the bus.
If you have the opportunity to visit either of those museums, I would highly recommend it.
Quotes:
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King Jr., 1963
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
Martin Luther King Jr., "Strength to Love"
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Visiting the Civil Rights Museum was just amazing. They have a display there with a bus just like the one Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of. If you were black at the time and wanted to ride the bus, you had to get on the front and pay, and then instead of walking back through the bus to the back, you had to get off the bus and walk around to the back doors and get on. So at the display at the museum, you can get on the bus and sit in the seats, and there are statues of the other people who would have been on the bus. If you sit in the front of the bus a recording of the driver's voice says to you what the driver would have said to Rosa Parks and what all of the other passengers would have said. Our tour guide got us to get on the bus and made us stay on the bus even when "everyone else" on the bus was yelling at us to get to the back. Even though it was just a simulation and the voices were just recorded, I wanted to burst into tears and run off the bus.
If you have the opportunity to visit either of those museums, I would highly recommend it.
Quotes:
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King Jr., 1963
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
Martin Luther King Jr., "Strength to Love"
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
Martin Luther King Jr.
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