Besides the Southern experience of race relations from slavery and the Civil War through Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the 2008 trip will consider some aspects of Hurricane Katrina.
Matlock says the most moving part of the trip was the group’s visit to a slavery and Civil War museum, housed in the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma.
She wrote in her journal: “moved to tears as we were treated like slaves.”
The group was told not to make eye contact with the museum guide, she says. And when they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge — site of 1965’s “Bloody Sunday” march — Matlock wrote, “Oh Lord! The horror, the pain, the courage, the determination, the fights, the victories of a people.”
The trip answered many questions, she says.
“Some of the people said it was life changing and I didn’t believe it,” she says. “But it has changed my life, my outlook, my understanding and my willingness. It kind of puts you more at a peace about yourself.”
— Associated Press
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