3/25/08

Suburban News

Khalila Perrin

While some students thumb through books over spring break, four students from Columbus Alternative High School will experience the civil rights movement with those who lived it.

The district’s spring recess began Friday, March 21, and runs through Friday, March 28.

On Tuesday, March 25, the four students — Jerry Hoke, Cole Henry Jones, James McKenzie and Marquis Taylor — left the city for the Civil Rights Heritage bus tour.

The event — sponsored in part by the Ohio Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission and Columbus’ Community Relations Commission — puts the four students with about 40 other history enthusiasts, ages 8 to 80. The students were chosen based on their interest levels.

Some of the riders were even involved in the movement, which was an exciting prospect for Taylor, a freshman at CAHS.

“I look forward having the elders on the bus,” he said. “We can learn a lot from them.”

The tour’s aim is to allow participants to visit places in Ohio and throughout the South, like Tennessee’s Lorrine Hotel National Civil Rights Museum and the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The bridge was the site of what came to be known as a “Bloody Sunday” March 7, 1965. That’s when Alabama state troopers pelted civil rights marchers with tear gas and clubs in an attempt to keep them from continuing their march across the bridge. The event propelled the movement into the national spotlight.

McKenzie, also a freshman, said he was excited to see places like the Pettus Bridge firsthand during the tour, which returns to Columbus on Saturday, March 29.

“It’s just a better way of understanding how the civil rights movement was made and how it’s impacted what we’ve done today,” he said. “I think it will better my knowledge.”

Hoke, a junior at CAHS, agreed.

“It is really hard to understand what exactly happened (during the movement).” he said. “… It’s going to be cool to see those places you always hear about.”

The Columbus commission helped organize a similar trip in 2006. Commission Deputy Director of the Community Relations Napoleon Bell remembers well the impact the tour made.

“It’s almost overwhelming, the feeling that is there when you’re actually on location,” said Bell. “It’s so much information and it really gives you a better idea of what went on and what people went through … during the civil rights movement.”

This marks the first time the tour has included a student group from Columbus City Schools. CAHS history teacher Steve Murray also will attend as the students’ chaperone.

“We are looking to trying to do this again next year and try to get the word out even earlier,” Bell added.

They hope to do so with grant money and the help of organizations like Friends of the Arts for Community Enrichment, which sponsored two of the four CAHS students’ trip.

“It’s a tremendous trip. They’re going everywhere,” said Daisy Lewis, FACE’s current treasurer and a member since 1990.

The organization is a service group whose mission is to help children become more involved in theater and the arts.

Friends of CAHS, the school’s PTA, also sponsored a student, and an anonymous donor sponsored Murray’s trip.

When the students return, they’ll present pictures, mementos and thoughts from their trip in the hopes of attracting more students to participate next year.

“We would love to be able to do it every year,” said Bell. “That would be the goal.”

“It’s just a better way of understanding how the civil rights movement was made and how it’s impacted what we’ve done today.”

–James McKenzi