I was invited to join 37 folks from Peace Lutheran Church in Gahanna, Ohio for a Civil Rights Pilgrimage June 25 - July 3, 2026. My friend, Diane Wassum's sister couldn't go at the last minute, so I became her roommate and "honorary sister".
DAY ONE - Thursday, June 25 - Highlander Folk School
After a long drive to Ohio the day before, we met at 5 am to board a large bus! Our first stop The Highlander Folk School in New Market, Tennessee, (https://highlandercenter.org). It is called The Movement School and it is the place where Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and many others in the Civil Rights Movement went to learn and strategize about non-violent community organizing. Set in an idyllic Blue Ridge setting its beginnings revolved around helping folks in Appalachia organize a coal union and improve their working and living conditions in the 1930's. They use a Danish model of "popular education" that brings adults together to solve their problems using cultural organizing, intergenerational learning, justice language, and applying it all to action. The center continues to be a target of far-right groups (KKK) and endured a fire-bombing of their offices as recently as 2019.
DAY TWO - Friday, June 26 - Atlanta: The King Center, Ebenezer Baptist Church, The Carter Center, and The National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
The entrance to the King Center contains a gorgeous BLUE reflecting pool, upon which are two mausoleums containing the remains of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King. The inscriptions around the pool reflect their principles. My favorite quote was: "We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. This may well be mankind's last chance to choose between chaos and community." Wow! That could be written today, versus the late 60's. And I pray we choose community! The inside of the Center was organized around Dr. King's principles of non-violence he had learned and expanded on after also studying Ghandi.
 |
| Deb's favorite quote Note the 6 principles are on the panels to the right |
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Six Principles of Nonviolence are:
Principle one: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. It is active nonviolent resistance to evil. It is aggressive spiritually, mentally and emotionally.
Principle two: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding. The result of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation. The purpose of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community.
Principle three: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people. Nonviolence recognises that evildoers are also victims and are not evil people. The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil, not people.
Principle four: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform. Nonviolence accepts suffering without retaliation. Unearned suffering is redemptive and has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities.
Principle five: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate. Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well as the body. Nonviolent love is spontaneous, unmotivated, unselfish and creative.
Principle six: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice. The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win. Nonviolence believes that God is a God of justice.
These are both transformative and HARD to apply!
In the "Ghandi Room" there were many pictures and artifacts, but the one that I related to were Ghandi's little round glasses. We also saw Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize and much of Coretta Scott King's work was also highlighted. His mother was shot at Ebenezer Church in 1974.
 |
| Dr. King at the Nobel Ceremony |
The Carter Center/Library was very impressive, and it, too, housed his Nobel Prize and a blue reflecting pool (it's apparently not that hard!). We often think about his "failed" Presidency vs. the work he did later with democracy and voting in other countries, Habitat and health issues (eracticating the screw worm was highlighted). But when you see the body of his work, you realize he advanced the country greatly in just 4 years: a national health care plan, The Arab/Israeli Peace Accords developed between Sadat and Menachem Begin, beginning the EPA and emphasizing environmental issues, anti-inflation measures, and he DID get the Iran hostages home, even though they landed after Regan's Inauguration. I took several pictures of Amy Carter and sent them to my next door neighbor who is just about the age she was as a child in the White House.
 |
| How often do you see TWO Nobel Peace Prizes in one day! |
 |
| Amy Carter |
The Civil and Human Rights Museum was very impressive. One exhibit allowed you to sit at a lunch counter and hear and experience the violent verbal jabs and hear the folks next to you getting hit and kicked through earphones. It only lasted a minute and 20 seconds, but several folks could not endure it that long. I definitely would need much more training in non-violent reactions to violence. It was very intense.
Another realization, I had during the exhibits was experiencing all of the news footage, especially Howard K. Smith and the footage of Bobby Kennedy, and what we came to call the "wall of shame" - Bull Conner, Lester Mattox, Strom Thurmond, etc. The movement would never have been successful without the press, as it woke up the "silent majority", especially white politicians, and made them demand action.
In a special exhibit about human rights and soccer I met a group of teens from the DC area who were on the same trip as us, except they were doing it in the reverse order, and Atlanta was their last stop. Talking to them and hearing their reactions to the Civil Rights Movement, gave me hope for the future.
 |
| DC Teens The picture doesn't show - they are sitting inside a big soccer ball |
DAY THREE: Saturday, June 27: Tuskegee, The Graetz Neighborhood in Montgomery
We began our day driving to Tuskegee and Montgomery. On the bus we watched a film about the syphilis study that interviewed some of the survivors, especially Herman Shar, at 95 years old. As a result of the study, President Clinton issued a national apology to the families and survivors and a National Center for Bioethics was established.
We toured the Tuskegee Air Museum and saw some of the Red Tail planes the airmen trained on. It was heartbreaking to hear that they were treated better in Italy than at home. There they were embraced and experienced no racism except at the hands of their white commanders. Their officers were banned from the officers' mess and social hall. When a few of the men were shot down and landed in German Prison Camps the Germans asked why they were fighting for a country that did not want them. After the war many of the airmen joined the Civil Rights Movement.
We met Anthony Lee who was a student who desegregated Natasla High School in Tuskegee. At the end of the year, the students did not have a graduation ceremony, but were just handed their diplomas as they left school on the last day. He went on to get several degrees from Auburn. Fifty years later, the town gave them a true graduation ceremony complete with caps and gowns, and walking across the stage.
 |
| Anthony Lee |
At lunch on campus we met some students. Tuskegee University has only 3000 students on 5000 acres! It is very spread out and in disrepair. Most of the students were studying horticulture , one was an architecture major.
We arrived in Montgomery in the late afternoon and toured Rev. Graetz' neighborhood. He was the white pastor at all black Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery during the bus boycott. Our group had read his book, A White Preacher's Message on Race and Reconciliation, and his son John was one of our tour guides. We saw the parsonage that was bombed twice during the boycott and the church he served. During the boycott (381 days), many folks donated their cars and station wagons to run car pools. A picture of them parked in a field behind the church ran in national magazines. Rosa Parks did not go to Trinity Lutheran, but lived within walking distance and often led youth groups working with the NAACP at the church. We visited her apartment. She was not the first to refuse to change seats for a white person, but after she was arrested, the boycott began and she became the 'face" of it. She had trained at Highlander, and had a calm, quiet manner and articulated the Movement well. However she lost her job and eventually moved North.
 |
| Pastor Graetz' wife, Jeanne got at degree at 86! |
DAY FOUR: Sunday, June 28th: Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, The Legacy Museum, First Baptist Church. The New South Bookstore.
We began the morning worshipping at Dexter Avenue Church within sight of the Captiol where George Wallace "made his stand". There were more visitors than members present and we were told that there are only 30 active members. They rely on visitors to keep the building and museum afloat. This became a pattern with many of the small churches we visited.
The Legacy Museum was definitely a highlight of the trip. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed. It is designed as an immersive experience from Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. Many of the exhibits were very powerful both intellectually and emotionally. One wall housed hundreds of gallon jars with dirt from the sites of lynchings. One prominent quote was "Slavery did not end. It evolved." And as the exhibits took you from a swirling ocean under a slave vessel, through slavery, Jim Crow, Terror lynchings, the Civil Rights Movement, and mass incarceration, you truly felt your white privilege.
Connected to the Legacy Museum was the Peace and Justice Memorial Center otherwise known as the Lynching Museum. In its open air pavilion 805 casket-like metal boxes memorialize the lynchings in 805 counties all over the United States, but of course mainly in the South. As you slowly walk beside or ultimately under each box, the silent cries are very loud.
 |
| Lynchings in my hometown |
We ended the day at The New South Book Store - filled with banned books and described as a blue dot in a very red sea. I bought 3 books!
DAY FIVE: Monday, June 29: Alabama State University and the Graetz Archives, Selma, the Edmond Pettus Bridge, Browns Chapel
At ASU we viewed the Graetz Archives and several historical exhibits. Dr. White, our guide, knew many of the participants in the movement and Bus Boycott and truly made history come alive. Rev. Bob Graetz, his wife Jeanne, Rev. and Mrs. Ray Abernathy, and the Kings were three young pastors with young families. As they organized the bus boycott that lasted almost a year, their commitment to justice and non-violence was truly tested. All three of their homes were bombed. When all of Jeanne Graetz' dishes were broken Rosa Parks and the neighbors took up a collection to get her new dishes. They developed code words to have the children play "hide and seek" and hide behind the sofa when groups of angry KKK'ers roamed the streets. Some of the letters in the archives were heart-wrenching and others were very transparent in their white privilege, telling the Graetz that they were carpet-baggers that just didn't understand how to "bring the blacks along" (and keep them in their place!). There were also letters from all over the country, even globally, encouraging their cause and sending them donations.
The first few successes of the Civil Rights movement dealt with public accommodations such as breaking the segregation of lunch counters, restaurants and having to sit in the back of the bus. As we traveled the short distance to Selma, we learned about voting rights.
Mrs. Diane Harris talked to us in Browns Chapel AME Zion Church. It held the first mass meeting where Dr. King strategized the Voting Rights Movement with SCLC. Dr. King had trouble mobilizing the adults because they were afraid they would lose their jobs and registering to vote was both dangerous and humiliating. The poll tax was prohibitive and the voting test was ridiculous with questions asking how many bubbles in a bar of soap, seeds in a watermelon and jelly beans in a jar. More "substantive" questions included "If a person is charged with treason denied their guilt, how many persons must testify against them before they can be convicted?" and "In what year did Congress gain the right to prohibit the migration of persons to the states?"
Three times the citizens tried to march toward Montgomery which meant crossing the Edmond Pettus Bridge and each time the police met them with cattle prods and billy clubs, giving their efforts the name of Bloody Sunday. The future Congressman, John Lewis was among those bludgeoned. We walked both the first 1/2 mile from the church, and the last 1/2 mile across the bridge in nearly 100 degree heat.
The march to Montgomery gained momentum after Bloody Sunday and the march to Montgomery (40 miles) was joined by many "freedom riders" and famous musicians - Peter Paul and Mary, Harry Belefonte, Paul Simon and Ertha Kitt to name a few. Again the press coverage helped their cause and the idea of a Voting Rights Act began to take shape
DAY SIX: Birmingham and the Children's March Crusade.
Two months after the Montomery march, the Children's March, was organized by mostly young people in Birmingham. They convinced their parents that they were willing to go to jail and they could help gain voting rights because they could not be fired since they had no jobs. They only needed to miss school. Once again SCLC helped to organize the march and and the cause was taken up by the local DJ on a black radio station. He gave the children directions in code. SCLC held many training sessions with the children in non-violence and how to protect your head and body. They were taught freedom songs to bolster their resolve. For 8 days the children marched in waves to the court house and were arrested. Over 1000 children marched in all and clogged the Birmingham courts and jails. Mrs. Harris told us that her mom finally broke down and let her go when she told her that she wanted her mom to be able to vote so that she could be a full citizen (not just to miss school or because her friends were doing it.) When the children were held in the prison camp, 30 children were put in each cell and had no cots or place to sit. Soon even 30 to a cell would not hold the 1000 children that kept coming. Bull Conner was both the Police Chief and the head of the Fire Division so he came up with spraying the children with fire hoses and using dogs to terrorize them. SCLC made sure that the press captured it all and these scenes on TV turned the tide and got President Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy to enforce the law and begin writing the Civil Rights Bill that was passed under President Johnson after the Kennedy Assassination.
Four months later, the KKK took more retribution by bombing the 16th St. Baptist Church and killing 4 young girls getting ready to participate in Youth Sunday. Earlier in the day 2 young men were also killed (shot) as they walked in town. FOURTEEN years later, the perpetrators were finally brought to justice but served short terms. Every year at 10:26 am on September 16th all the churches in Montgomery ring their bells 6 times, for each of the children in the bombing and shootings. In the back of the 16th St. Church is a beautiful modern stained glass window donated to the church by a man in Wales in the UK.
So many bombings occurred in Birmingham that it was called "Bombingham". After the 16th St. Bombing, Reverend Shutlesworth at Bethel Baptist Church regretted holding the mass meetings at his church to organize the Children's Crusade.
 |
| Sculpture of 4 girls from the Birmingham Bombing at 16th St. Church |
 |
| Art inside the church |
 |
| Note: the path leads THRU the sculpture It was chilling. |
DAY SEVEN: Wednesday, July 1: Tupelo to Memphis, The Rock and Soul Museum, Withers Gallery, Clayborn Temple and the Peabody Hotel
We did a "drive by" of Elvis' home, then on to Memphis.
The Rock and Soul Museum was a great reprieve from the seriousness of the Civil Rights Marches. Music was the one thing in the 60's that brought Whites and Blacks together, especially as nurtured by Stax Records. Folks in our group went from being emotionally wrought and often crying and frequently just hanging our heads as we looked at museum exhibits, to joyfully swaying and bopping to the music! Besides having numerous listening stations and great music behind the exhibits and videos, we saw many of the famous costumes and artifacts from the birth of Rock and Roll.
Sam Phillips summed it up nicely: "Without the cooperation of total resentment on the part of the parents, Rock N' Roll would have had a rougher time makin' it." This was NOT your parents' music!! And that was the point!.
 |
| I had no idea there was an all female radio station in the 50's!! |
At the Withers Gallery we were greeted by a man who's name I didn't record, but he had made the I AM A MAN posters that were used in the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike and knew Withers who had been one of Dr. King's photographers. Withers became well known when he would take pictures of the crowd at baseball games, rush home about the 3rd inning, develop them and then come back and sell them to the subjects! He became associated with the Civil Rights Movement when he documented the Emmit Til trial.
 |
| The Withers Gallery The Sanitation Workers just wanted to be recognized as huMAN |
We were only scheduled to drive by the Clayborn Temple where Dr. King gave his last speech, but it was surprisingly open and they let us in. Unlike many of the small churches, this one held 4000 people and had a choir "loft" that sat 300! Today it is the administrative offices of the denomination. This was Dr. King's "mountain top speech" which he had not planned but spoke "off the cuff" and in it he spoke of his death which would come the next day.
 |
| Temple where King gave his last speech |
The Peabody Hotel was just a fun stop. It is the home of the Peabody ducks who have been taught to march from their penthouse on the roof to the lobby where they swim in a fountain from 11 am to 5 daily, and then march back to the elevator!. Of course I bought the book!
 |
| The duck's "pent house" on top of the Peabody Hotel |
 |
| The REAL ducks |
DAY EIGHT: Thursday, July 2: Memphis National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel
This was another excellent museum, and might have been the "best" had we not been "museum weary." John and Mike our tour guides had warned us of this. Each museum feels they must tell the whole story, not just what their city or group contributed, for they know most folks will only go to one civil rights museum, if at all. Therefore many of the museums use the same pictures and similar artifacts.
This museum was attached to the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was assassinated The last time I was in Memphis, the museum was not built and you could drive by the Motel. The museum was designed so that you walked a specific path and as the chronicaling of the Civil Right Movement progressed, you suddenly found yourself in Dr. King's motel room looking out at the balcony where he was killed. That was chilling. An addition to the museum had recently been completed in the rooming house across the street that housed the room and bathroom where the fatal shot was taken. It reminded me of visiting the Book Depository in Dallas where Kennedy was shot. The annex was interesting in that it took the movement past the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's and chronicled George Floyd and the Black Lives Matters movement and talked about "where do we go from here." There was an interesting exhibit by Kimberly Bryant that said the Movement needed to concentrate in three areas: teaching more Black girls to code and become interested in STEM education to close the economic and achievement gap and influence the use of AI; Bradley Miles had a panel of stopping Human Trafficing; and the third panel talked about Immigration and how everyone has a right to both education and human rights.
 |
| From the outside |
 |
| From the inside Note the rooming house across the street |
IT WASN'T ALL SERIOUS! Some shots of my friend Diane... of course I was on the other side of the camera, doing the same!
 |
| The Drury Inn gave us 3 free drinks from 5-7 We NEEDED them! |
 |
| This was in the museum in Atlanta and coordinates with Dr. King's principles |
