The 2006 CRC trip - Day 1, May 27th
-- Nancy Larraine Hoffmann

Off  We Go!

 7:30 AM, Saturday, May 27, 2006:  Here we are, ready to roll! Finally, after months of planning and the last minute crunch of packing and logistics, everything seems so well-organized as we check baggage, seal our coolers packed with supplies, and hand out the CRC t-shirts to our 16 very excited high school students, 3 Syracuse University students, and 5 chaperones.  The kids are excited and nervous…some more than others.  Two or more have never flown. One forgot to check his sleeping bag, but the nice Northwest people at the counter and our great friend Judy Dardzinski (WorldLink Travel) have everything under control.  We hand out ID badges, itineraries for parents, and last-minute instructions about cell phone use (very limited, none while traveling today).  Some students with less than two checked bags agree to travel with our coolers in their names.  Nottingham student Lauren Davis has only one carry-on and cheerfully volunteers to carry our copier.  We will use that to copy the student journal pages, and highlight and post entries on the web page so we can give back the journals.  I really like these kids.  They are polite, and helpful. Most are practicing saying “Yes Ma’am” and “Yes Sir” and are already using courtesy titles in front of all names.  These students will be fine young ambassadors for Central New York, and thoughtful scholars of the Civil Rights Movement.   

THE NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM , Memphis

When the students walk on the bus and a recorded voice tells them to “walk to the back” it startles and angers them.  The burned-out bus scares them.  Now they start to see the racism that governed daily life in the south.  On the walls in stark black and white they are seeing the historic newspaper accounts of sit-ins, beatings, burnings, and lynchings.  The museum incorporates the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot, a wreath hanging in front of his room. This first stop on The Civil Rights Connection itinerary creates the backdrop which helps the students understand the courage of the men and women who challenged segregation. The exhibit hall overwhelms the students with the intensity of the segregated system, and the scope of the struggle. 

Once again, as in years past, I look up at the balcony of the motel, and remember sleeping there as young woman, up from Fayette, Mississippi to work on the l970 Shelby County Sheriff’s race.  A recent Syracuse University graduate, I traveled by bus up Highway 61, then a 2-lane road, in the blistering heat with my Nikon F-1 camera (the graduation present from my parents) to take pictures and help out with the campaign.  Mayor Evers, a couple volunteers, plus the Fayette Youth Choir made the 5 hour trip up to Memphis for two days, but I was asked to stay on.  In those days, Civil Rights workers never knew where they might sleep at night, or how they might be pressed into service. We just stayed flexible.  In l970 the Lorraine Motel didn’t feel terribly safe 2 years after Dr. King’s murder on the balcony three rooms down from the room where I stayed. Our students will feel safe on The Civil Rights Connection journey, but their accommodations will sometimes be similar to the ready-to-roll life of their student activist leader 35 years ago.

INDIANOLA, MISISSIPPI

After riding in our rental vans through the Mississippi Delta we arrive in Indianola, home of BB King.  Indianola, the county seat of Sunflower County, is located in the middle of cotton plantations and was the scene of some of the movement’s toughest challenges. Our host, Charles McLaurin, arrived in Indianola in the early 60’s as a young SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) worker dedicated to registering voters with the late Fannie Lou Hamer.  We arrive at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in time to listen to the youth group rehearse musical selections for their production about the church’s “Mass Meetings,” held weekly to motivate people during the long civil rights struggle. One young man has written “I am a Phenomenal Man”, a gender-parallel to a famous Maya Angelou poem.  The students eat spaghetti with the youth group, then try out their sleeping bags in two local homes at the end of a long Day One.