Notre Dame students get lessons on civil rights during Montgomery mission trip

Notre Dame Regional High School's mission trip to Montgomery, Alabama, held an added bonus for the 15 participants -- a chance to meet the Rev. Bernice King, youngest daughter of Coretta Scott King and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

During the June 16-through-21 trip, the group of seven students and eight adults worked with Resurrection Catholic Missions in Montgomery to do outreach work for the parish's grade school, cleaning apartments for elderly residents in the community, doing some painting and delivering Meals on Wheels, among other tasks.

Projects were carried out in the morning so the group could visit civil rights museums and sights in the afternoon.

The group went to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. was pastor when he lived in Montgomery, the Rosa Parks Library and Museum and Children's Wing, Civil Rights Memorial and Freedom Rides Museum. It was at the Civil Rights Memorial that the group met King, a lawyer, who also is CEO of the King Center in Atlanta.

The whole experience, Notre Dame campus minister Sarah Strohmeyer said, was "very, very powerful" -- and fitting with the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act falling Wednesday.

Strohmeyer said she knew about Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, but hadn't heard much about the freedom riders, who forced integration of public transportation. The group was watching a movie at the Civil Rights Memorial when their tour guide said they needed to leave because the next group in was being led by Bernice King.

Strohmeyer asked the tour guide if King would talk to the group, and he said, "Well, you can ask her." So Strohmeyer explained what the group was doing in Montgomery and learning about civil rights in the afternoon. Strohmeyer said it would be a privilege if King could say a few words to the group in the hallway.

King also was leading a group of high school students to various civil rights sites around the South, to teach them peaceful conflict resolution, Strohmeyer said.

Strohmeyer said King spoke about her father's legacy and the photo of her on her mother's lap at her father's funeral.

"It was unbelievable that we had that opportunity," Strohmeyer said. She noted Notre Dame does mission trips every summer, but kids normally work three full days and have a day of sightseeing. This time, with so much to learn, they took advantage, making the trip historical and educational.

"The kids did really hard, difficult, hot work in the mornings, and then just learned a lot about stuff that they knew nothing about, except from history books," she added.

Strohmeyer teaches a social justice class for seniors at Notre Dame, covering Parks and the bus boycott. "[The trip] has certainly enriched my understanding of what was happening and what was going on at the time, and how things transpired. It will certainly enrich my teaching ..."

Lenny Kuper, a Notre Dame math teacher who went on the trip, said it greatly affected him. Kuper also is the swim coach and director of music at St. Vincent's Church.

"I think all of us, everyone in the group, was deeply moved by the injustices that were depicted at the different museums that we visited," Kuper said. "Our visit to Montgomery definitely heightened our awareness of equal justice issues that I think we're kind of sheltered from up here."

Katie Sellers, who will be a freshman at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, in the fall, and Tyler Allen, who will be a senior at Notre Dame, said the trip made an impression on them.

Sellers, 18, said this was her first year going on a mission and she learned things she didn't read about in books. One day, the group visited the Equal Justice Initiative, a private, not-for-profit organization that provides legal representation to indigent defendants and prisoners who have been denied fair and just treatment in the legal system. She added she also learned about current civil rights issues and realized there are still things that need to be fixed.

Allen, 18, said he also learned from the experience. "It kind of gave me ... a shock ... knowing how good I have it up here. ..." he said.

Loretta Prater, former dean of the college of Health and Human Services at Southeast Missouri State University, grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, lived through the civil rights movement and experienced it personally, having had to leave home to attend college because of the color of her skin.

"There's a cliche. ... If you don't know your past, then you tend to repeat it," Prater said. Through her teaching experience, she found that many young people don't know about the past.

"A lot of the history of the civil rights movement, and prior to that, a lot of that was never, ever taught; and a lot of it isn't being taught now. We were just kind of left out of the textbooks, except for indications about slavery," Prater said.

Prater said she told her students about how students in Chattanooga got hand-me-down textbooks from white students, but still had to take the ACT and SAT tests. Black teachers also were paid less than white teachers, she said.

Those most upset about that, she said, seemed to be white students.

"They just couldn't fathom that," Prater added.

She said more discussions about race relations are needed, and if we don't get race relations right, that will be America's downfall.

" ... If we talk about human relations and freedoms and rights and go around the world fighting for this, we need to get it right here as well," Prater said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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