Today was basically a typical day, it started raining again. In we wrote our own freedom songs and one of the freedom riders came and spoke to our class. I do not know how to spell his name but he was a professor of Russian history at Brown.
Our class song goes like this:
we are one, freedom is coming
we stand together, for equality and a brighter day.
The melody is to the song "we are the world." It was a very fun process of trying to make the song because we all had so many ideas. But in the end we came up with a great catchy song.
Then we acted like we were back in the time of the civil rights movement and talked about how we felt about white people joining the freedom summer. Shortly after that one of the freedom riders came in and talked to us. He told us why and how he joined that summer. He also told us about his experiences of how he did a sit-in and how he was treated.He said he was never thrown out of his chair but he did get hit in the back of the head and got things thrown at him. One thing that really stuck out at me was how he was sometimes treated by black people. When the times were hard they would get in arguments and sometimes he was asked "why are you even here." But he said he never let those comments get to him because he knew that he was there for something greater than him. This is his picture below.
2 comments:
Tiffany,
How interesting it must have been to meet a "Freedom Rider" -- someone who was able to see a real need and be willing to risk all to make the statement necessary to respond to it (even if those he was trying to support were not always understanding of his motives).
Not only that, he's still fighting for freedom -- sharing his story with you. I think it is wonderful that he was able to come and share his story with your class. What did you learn from him -- personally -- what kind of person would make this kind of selfless decision? Did he share his motivation? And why does he continue on?
Thanks for taking the picture and posting it to the blog. Please share your thoughts about his decision as a young man -- and what that decision might mean for you.
I'm anxious to hear your thoughts.
Enjoy your last few days.
Tiffany,
You’re such a tease. Did you think you could play with us and get away with it?
You tell us that your class talked about “white people joining the freedom summer” and then you cut us off without telling us what your classmates said—without telling us what talked about “white people joining the freedom summer” and then you cut us off without telling us what your classmates said—without telling us what YOU said.
We’ve been reading things from your class where it’s okay to turn to violence against white people because they turned violent against black people and you tell us about how this freedom rider was distrusted by the very same people he was risking his life to help.
But we hear no explanations with regards to that all important topic about non-blacks joining your struggle.
You owe us, Tiffany. You owe us an explanation so please follow through on this.
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