Hallowed Ground: SIUE Students Examine Civil Rights History in Montgomery, Alabama

Hallowed Ground: SIUE Students Examine Civil Rights History in Montgomery, Alabama

Four Southern Illinois University Edwardsville students spent the first part of their summer immersed in civil rights history at the sites where it unfolded, traveling to Montgomery, Alabama.

"HIST 101: 'Hallowed Ground: Civil Rights Pilgrimage and Historical Memory'" is a Maymester course led by two professors of history at SIUE: Tandra Taylor, PhD, assistant vice chancellor for educational pathways and community engagement and executive director of the SIUE Freedom School, and Bryan Jack, PhD, director of SIUE's initiative with Universities Studying Slavery.

The course included travel May 24-28 to Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Sites and other landmarks connected to the Civil Rights Movement, including Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The trip marked the third Civil Rights pilgrimage Taylor and Jack have led together. Their first grew from Journeys to Justice, a project led by Taylor and supported by an Illinois Innovation Network grant. This year marked the first time the experience was embedded in an academic course, allowing students to prepare before departure and examine patterns in how museums, memorials and historic sites present history.

According to Jack, the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park set the tone for the trip.

"We accessed the park via a boat on the Alabama River, tracing a route where enslaved people were taken in Montgomery," said Jack. "The sensory experience of being on the river sets the mood to experience the park. A worker estimated the students would spend approximately one hour in the sculpture park and instead, we spent three. The students deeply analyzed the material."

The group also visited the Equal Justice Initiative's Legacy Museum, located on the site of a former cotton warehouse where enslaved people labored. Students explored downtown Montgomery, encountering history woven throughout the city.

Taylor and Jack encouraged students to experience the larger landscape of Montgomery, from the corner where Rosa Parks boarded the bus before refusing to surrender her seat to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where a young Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ministered.

"There is something to seeing and standing in the actual places where this history happened," said Jack. "Seeing those sites as part of the larger landscape of Montgomery adds to the experience."

The class moved through much of the experience together. The close-knit structure encouraged students to form strong connections and learn from each other as they processed the weight of their encounters.

Jack hopes students leave the course recognizing that history surrounds them and questioning how public narratives are constructed, presented and remembered. He also emphasized the importance of offering shorter domestic travel opportunities for students who may not be able to participate in a semester-long study abroad program.

"We can discuss the Montgomery Bus Boycott in class, but for students to stand in the spot where it began and see how close the segregationist state government buildings are to the Dexter Avenue church gives it more depth," added Jack.

That depth is central to the course's approach to experiential learning: expanding students' understanding of history while physically expanding their world.

"Not every student has the chance to participate in a semester-long study abroad program or even travel very much," said Jack. "It is important that we offer opportunities to explore aspects of U.S. history through trips that take less than a week. In a previous trip, we had students who had never been south of St. Louis before. Two students on this trip had never flown before."

By placing students within the existing landscapes of the past, Taylor and Jack's course invites students to engage with history beyond texts and lecture halls- where it is still present, constructed and marched forward.

Photos: Courtesy of Bryan Jack, PhD.