Students quiz panel about Civil Rights Movement

GADSDEN, Ala. (AP) - As the old saying goes, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

Litchfield Middle School set out to educate some of its top history students by letting them ask a panel of local activists and officials the questions they wanted to know about the Civil Rights Movement in the past, present and future.

President Marcia Kendrick and Vice President Roderick Thomas of the Gadsden chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Gadsden City Council member Robert Avery talked about what they had seen growing up in Northeast Alabama when things were very different than today.

Many of the questions involved segregation. Eighth-grader Asia McCarther-Smith asked how “separate but equal” laws felt. Avery and Kendrick explained as they grew up, they didn’t know any different, so as young children it was normal. However, as the movement grew and television became a bigger part of American life, they learned that segregation was not normal and was very wrong.

“I didn’t think it was a good law,” Avery said. “There’s no such thing as ’separate but equal’ because it wasn’t equal.”

Avery gave a lesson about how the Alabama Constitution that was passed in 1901 changed things for African-Americans throughout the state because up until that point, there were black elected officials and black voters. He said once the constitution was passed, the rights of African-Americans in Alabama began to slip away until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

Many of the students also asked about the panelists’ experiences attending marches and rallies and how they came together. Thomas and Kendrick both said the biggest influence on the movement was Martin Luther King Jr. and his nonviolent strategy. Kendrick, when asked about what her reaction would have been to the Mother’s Day attack in Anniston, in which a bus carrying Freedom Riders was fire-bombed, said she is glad she knows now how important nonviolence is. A violent reaction, even in self-defense, could have made the situation much worse.

The most pointed questions came from students asking how the trio felt about race relations today. Seventh-grader Elijah McCarther asked if they thought King’s dream had come true, and seventh-grader Jarious Avery asked if they felt segregation had really ended.

Kendrick said parts of the dream have come true, but more work still needs to be done. She said the beautiful part of the dream is that it was big enough for everybody, including all of the students in the room. Avery said segregation had ended by law, but by human nature, it had not. He said laws can be changed far easier than the hearts of men, and when those hearts are changed, things will finally be different.

Thomas, who also is a minister, pointed out that the most segregated places aren’t found throughout people’s everyday lives, but at 11 a.m. every Sunday in churches throughout the world. He asked the children to picture Heaven and asked if they felt it was full of white people or black people, or Hispanic people, or everybody. The students said Heaven is for all people, no matter how they look.

“If we’re going to be good together,” Thomas said, “we need to get good with God together.”

Kendrick also gave the students a lesson on how segregation is common throughout schools everywhere in the form of cliques. She said people need to be loving to each other no matter their differences, whether it’s skin color, social status, intelligence or style of dress.

Thomas also condemned racism and told the children that everyone is capable of racism and it doesn’t run one way. He urged them to learn from history and learn to rise above the ugliness of the past, so that the future can be a better place.

“(Racism) is a hater’s mentality,” Thomas said. “If you stay doing what you’re supposed to be doing, you won’t have time to hate on anyone.”

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Information from: The Gadsden Times, https://www.gadsdentimes.com