Selma, Ala., where the only speed is mosey. The birthplace of Civil Rights Movement and the death place of black Selma youth. Cross one side of the tracks, (and yes a single train track runs through the entire town tooting its horn at all hours) and find antebellum-style mansions. Imagine white-picket fences, porches that wrap around the entire house and plantation homes. Now, cross the other side of the tracks and imagine slave shacks (yes they are still standing), boarded up windows, graffiti and poverty.
For my spring break in 2014, I wanted to spend my vacation time doing something more fulfilling. I found that with Freedom Foundation in Selma. And ironically, that service trip ended up being more of an inspiration for me than I was for the youth in Selma.
Every night brought in a new flood of emotions because every day was so unpredictable. During the day I, and other SMU students, volunteered at different Selma elementary schools and/or worked to renovate an old building.
In the evenings, over five different universities came together to reflect on our days, fellowship with one another over dinner, listen to speakers essential to the Civil Rights Movement or Freedom Foundation, learn more about the history of Selma, and hear testimonies of the students involved in Freedom Foundation’s smaller organization for at-risk youth called RATCo.
We also toured Selma and visited the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery.
I cried, I laughed, I learned, I danced, I cried some more and I ate.
Although there were a myriad of things that affected me in Selma, what sticks out the most was the school system. To start off, they are segregated. I am talking 99 percent black versus 99 percent white. And teachers are almost a direct reflection of the student body as well.
One of the private white high schools is actually named after a prominent Klu Klux Klansmen, John T. Morgan.
We only visited the black schools during our stay in Selma. Freedom Foundation said the white schools would not have been welcoming.
For the black community, public schools in Selma are so bad that parents choose to send their kids to private high schools. But they are not any better. Because private schools operate under different regulations than a public school, you find that children are being taught to dislike and distrust “white folks,” as the students call them.
In the white schools, they are being taught the confederacy. So it’s a vicious cycle of hate starting in the early stages of childhood.
Almost every school we visited had an extensive security system in it. Let me remind you this is grade school and not high school. I can only image what is at the high school. At the middle school I saw HIV and sexual awareness posters on the wall. They had condom displays on them.
Inside the classroom, all students were performing below average.
Students didn’t have many aspirations or dreams. Many didn’t like any classes other than P.E. A student even asked if Yale was real.
Teachers are overwhelmed, understaffed and there are not enough funds to go around.
Corporal punishment was very popular. And if it wasn’t that, there was a lot of yelling, and other non politically correct ways of disciplining. What I saw in some of those schools made me questions whether or not Child Protective Services was needed.
The lack of hope, their limited worlds, the environment these kids are growing up in, all of it was just heart breaking.
I believe every person has potential to be more than their environment, but these kids were not receiving that message of hope.
But, there is a beacon of light and it lies in the Freedom Foundation and their program for Selma youth called Random Acts of Theatre Company or RATCo for short. In this program, Selma youth, most of them black, spend their free time expressing themselves through theatre and dance and out of the murderous streets of Selma.
Freedom Foundation began in Colorado and found its next mission in Selma. Now it has spread to other locations including Atlanta and is in the process of finding a home in the Dallas area, perhaps on the University of North Texas campus.
When RATCo kids were around we were able to put a face to the things we were learning about and seeing. Some of the kids have dealt with molestation, family violence, gang activity, absentee parents, drugs, murder and so much more tragedy.
But RATCo focuses on giving those kids and outlet and a healthy source of community. Former RATCo members who are adults now were among the many people we met in Selma. They said without RATCo, they are not sure how their lives would have ended up.
If there was anything that I could have taken out of my entire experience in Selma, it is that the march continues. That refers to racial relations in the Unites States and reaching back into poorer communities and not letting them continue in the state that they are in now.
For me, that means reaching out to the youth because change happens there. They are the most influential and the most influenced.
Click on the slide show below to see pictures from my trip.
