Montessori Community School American South 2025
March 3, 2025
On Monday, we arrived at Atlanta airport at 8:00 and then we drove to a local breakfast that people enjoyed. After that, we went to the Ebenezer Baptist Church where we got a moving speech from a park ranger on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and his family. We then went to Birmingham and visited the Bethel Baptist Church, where we were amazed by the history of the area around it. After lunch, we had free time where we hung out and had some free time at a park which we needed after all the driving. Lastly, we checked into our great hotel and walked to a close restaurant which everyone enjoyed. We went back to the hotel and collapsed in exhaustion from the day.
By Kieran, Jonas, Robby, Kabir, and Julian
March 4th, 2025
Today we had breakfast at the hotel. We were super surprised at the variety of food that they had. After a filling breakfast, we moved on to the 16th Street Baptist Church. We were surprised to meet the sole survivor of the 5 little girls in the bombing, Sarah Collins. The information and personal experiences that we heard were very thought provoking, and it made a lot of us want to learn more. After the very impactful tour, we headed over to the Kelly Ingram Park, which contained many statues showing horrific scenes of what happened during the segregation protesting by children. We next walked to the Negro Southern League Museum. We had a walking tour and learned about the Birmingham Black Barons, an All Black people baseball team. We were surprised to see the struggles it took to desegregate baseball in Alabama.
Yesterday we didn’t go to the Vulcan Museum, so we ended up going today. It was soo windy, and there was a great view of the city. Inside the museum we learned about Birmingham’s economy & steel industry. Unfortunately, because of the wind, we weren’t able to climb up the tower. We then went bowling and spent 2 hours there. It was very enjoyable and was a memorable experience with an arcade. We experienced comaraderie with fellow bowlers. We then returned to our hotel for some downtime before lights out. Overall, today was a really fun day, with many new experiences for all of US.
By Julian, Max, Rhys, Leann, Charlotte T & Bea
March 5, 2025
First, we started by having breakfast at our hotel and packing up to move hotels. We drove 1 and half hrs to Selma from Birmingham, stopping for lunch at the Sandbar restaurant before going to visit the Edmund Pettis Bridge. In Selma we met Colombia Mitchel and got a speech about what happened at the bridge as his uncle was a part of the march. We walked across the bridge in the footsteps of the protesters marching for the voting rights 60 years ago. Selma was very impactful and made it seem more real when we walked the bridge.
We then did a one hour drive to Montgomery where we visited the Southern Law Poverty Center. They showed us many clips & videos about how racism/oppression of people is still here & very much contemporary and recent. Then we checked into our hotel & got dinner at a Thai restaurant. After we returned we did a reflection of our experience for the day.
-JoJo, Kiera, Sylvester, Charlene, Leo & Maeve
March 6, 2025
We started our day at the Equal Justice Initiative: Legacy Museum. It was a very deep and eye opening experience that took us from the transatlantic slave trade to mass incarnation in the US. Seeing racism in the past brought light to the current effects it still has on society today.
Then we had a southern lunch completed with fried chicken.
Then we went to the National Memorial for Peace & Justice where we walked through 6.5 acres of land dedicated to the lives lost due to racial violence (lynching). The memorial was set up as tombstone hanging from the ceiling with the state, country & name of those that were lynched.
Later on we went to EJI Freedom Monument Sculpture park, a 17 acres site that honers the lives of the 10million black people who were enslaved in America.
We then drove to a mexican restaurant for dinner and celebrated Becca’s Birthday with ice-cream!
By Becca, Jordan, Robby, Isla, Asa, Kabir, Cami
