Walls Into Bridges

Today we went to the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro and to the statue of the Greensboro 4 (or A &T 4) at North Carolina A & T. The museum is located in the building where the first Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins took place, formerly a Woolworth’s department store. 

The tour at the museum was the pivotal part of my day. The tour guide, Ms. Robin, was VERY passionate about the ideas she was sharing and it was quite powerful to see her literally moved to tears by an exhibit she had already seen hundreds of times. This was a set of photos of the story of Emmett Till’s murder. There was one of his mother crying right next to one of his corpse—disfigured beyond recognition—and it was here where Ms. Robin told us how she hadn’t wanted him to go South because she knew the dangers he would face and how he was unaccustomed to the attitudes he would come to face and didn’t know there was anything to fear, even when two white men dragged him from his bed in the middle of the night. She told us step by step how he was tortured and murdered and then how his mother insisted on displaying his corpse so the whole world could see what was done to her child. Another room was nearly empty except for a KKK robe illuminated inside a glassed-in case and an American flag tapestry on another wall. Quite frankly, what I felt when I looked at it was fear. The power of these hate groups is terrifying, even when you know they wouldn’t target you. I couldn’t imagine having someone I loved go through the horrific tortures and hate crimes I saw pictured there. I couldn’t imagine the terror of living every day knowing that could happen to you if you spoke one word out of place. I couldn’t imagine going through the brutal torture. It made me realize how much I can’t possibly understand about how life must have been. After the tour, a few girls were joking around in the museum store and they mentioned we wouldn’t have been able to be friends without the work that people did towards integration in the movement. Beyond the obvious improving of inequalities, it would be such a loss for me and for the whole world if segregation hadn’t been ended. That movement took the work of many, many individuals from all walks of life. Ms. Robin put it beautifully: “the giant of the civil rights movement [was] the nameless.” We walked past a wall completely covered with mug shots of people who’d been arrested doing civil rights work and she said that people who come through the museum often find friends and family members among those pictured. “We are often standing among giants,” she said, “and we don’t even know it.” To me, this message went home to show how much change relies on the bravery of ordinary people. Anyone can take steps to change the world. Without these people, all of our lives would have been very different than they are. That said, there were reminders in the museum that change is still required. Although there is no longer such obvious, legal segregation, there are still a daunting number of issues of social justice in our society. In the past, I’ve often wondered how I can even get started. It seems too hard so much of the time and sometimes any efforts I make feel pitiful. Ms. Robin had different ideas. “Sometimes you can fight with a conversation,” she said. She showed us another wall of pictures of civil rights activists but this one had blank spaces for activists of the future, hopefully such as the people on this trip. She told us that there is a Maya Angelou poem that speaks of turning walls on their sides and making them become bridges. I don’t know how exactly to go about starting that but I know that I want to be someone who can make a difference with my life. In the past, I’ve often put off doing anything because of my age but in this museum I saw myriad examples of children and teenagers my age and younger marching, protesting, and dying for what they believed in. Me. Robin told us that the movement would not have survived without the leadership of youths and students. After this day I saw that people my age DO have the power to accomplish the changes they believe in and also that it is unacceptable for me to be a “passive liberal” and NOT to act in whatever ways I can to make a change. Traci Wright told me that it was said during the movement that a group who could let go of their inhibitions and sing together was a group that was ready to march. It’s time for me to let go of some of my fears of making mistakes and being judged. It’s time to start having conversations and to start turning walls into bridges. 

-Rachael Devecka