Day 3 - March 19, 2016 - Civil Rights Tour
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A coincidental but yet magical meeting with Lynda Blackman Lowery as they crossed the historic Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama highlighted Day Three. While standing on the historic bridge, Lowry passionately detailed how as a 15-year-old girl growing up in Selma, she was determined to fight for equality and the right to vote for blacks.
On that March 1965 day where she joined others who were crossing the bridge in an attempt to make their way from Selma to Montgomery in demonstration, violence erupted. She was beaten and received stiches to the back of her head. Lowery still wears a permanent scar on her face from the beating.“You must always stand up for what is right and you must always fright for justice,” Lowery told the students. Lowery pinned the book Turning 15 On The Road To Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March, details her experience.
On Day Three, The Clearwater High students also visited the Rosa Park Library and Museum in Montgomery, Alabama where they road in a simulated bus that detailed the black American journey leading up to the Civil Rights movement. They visited Dexter Memorial Baptist Church, for which Dr. Martin Luther King was a pastor for six years. They sat in the church fellowship hall and sanctuary. The students visited the Greyhound Bus station that many of the Freedom Riders used during the Civil Rights Movement that eventually allowed blacks to travel on bus like other citizens. Back in Selma, the students also visited the Slavery and Civil Rights Museum.
The Clearwater High Civil Rights Tour is a project-based personalized learning opportunity where 37 select students researched and created an experience that encompasses real-world occurrences that connect them to the Civil Rights movement in the United States.
The culmination of this endeavor includes an in-depth tour of historical civil rights movement sites. The students will visit Atlanta, Ga., Montgomery and Selma, Al., and conclude with a tour in the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. The trip will be held March 17-22, 2016.
On their return from the tour, the student participants, also known as CHS Freedom Ambassadors, will drive and lead a project based learning experience for the entire student body.
The students are currently “owning” the learning and becoming experts in the field. During the trip, Clearwater High students will meet individuals who were actually key stakeholders, active participants or spectators of these important events. No professional tour guides will be utilized on this tour, and all learning is authentic and student-driven.
On their return from the tour, the student participants, also known as CHS Freedom Ambassadors, will drive and lead a project based learning experience for the entire student body.
