Elaine Lee Turner and her sisters are historic in Memphis, Tenn. and the southeast for their acts during the Civil Rights Movement. The sisters earned the title as the “Most Arrested Civil Rights Family.” Elaine Lee Turner and her sisters were arrested 17 times.

On the second day of the Clearwater High School Civil Rights Tour, Turner explained to the CHS Freedom Ambassadors how they earned the title. They would start at one end of Main Street and go into a facility and sit-in to protest discriminatory practices against blacks. Once they did, the business would immediately close. Turner said they would then go to the next business along the street until the police were called and they were arrested.

Now, Turner gives lectures and tours of the Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum at 826 North Second Street, Memphis. The house, now a museum,  was used to hide runaway slaves so that they could make it north to their freedom. CHS Freedom Ambassadors listened intently as Turner described the process of how slaves hid in the cellar of the house. Turner discussed the meaning to runaways slaves of hanging quilts on clotheslines and she dissected the meaning of spirituals such as Swing Low Sweet Chariot and Wade in the Water. She even led the ambassadors in song. A tour of the Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum included a moment in the actual cellar where slaves hid.

For the fourth year, Clearwater High students participated in the Clearwater High School Civil Rights Tour. The ambassadors researched and participated in experiences that connected them to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. From March 15-18, the Freedom Ambassadors visited Atlanta, Ga., Birmingham, Ala., Memphis, Tenn. and Washington, D.C. The trip was the culmination of a project-based,  personalized learning opportunity that included an in-depth tour of sites with historical significance for the Civil Rights Movement.

The second day of the tour also included a tour of the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. Students viewed the hotel room where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was staying the day he was killed, the window where the fatal bullet was shot and other artifacts and films from the Civil Rights Movement. The day ended at the Withers Collection Museum and Gallery — Beale Street. At the museum and gallery, former journalist and now college professor Otis Sandford discussed the Civil Rights Movement from the perspective of his book “From Boss Crump to  King Willie, How Race Changed Memphis Politics."