This city has history.
Strong history.
From Holiday Inn to FedEx to Elvis to Johnny Cash to Martin Luther King Jr.
I have only lived in this city for about 3 weeks now, but I have learned more than I could have ever imagined. Thanks mainly to MTR for doing such a wonderful job taking us around and having speakers come talk to us as well. But I've also learned a lot just from the people I have met here.
This place is so diverse. Full of many different people. From skin color to socioeconomic level to cultures. I live in the heart of the city and I can drive 1 mile one way and be by a million dollar house or I can drive 1 mile the other way and be in the projects.
Let's back up to that history. The history of Memphis still effects it greatly today. I had the privilege to go the Civil Rights Museum with my classmates and professors. I admire the Civil Rights leaders so much more than I ever have before. They are my heros without a doubt. We were on the tour and there was a bus we could climb in. I sat down. And the bus driver (an automated voice) started yelling at me to move. I just got up and moved. I didn't want to make him mad or cause a scene. I'm no Rosa Parks. For the first time, I had an itty-bitty-tiny experience of what it would've felt like to not be able to sit on a bus because of something out of my control: my skin color.
Rosa Parks was strong. She was courageous.
As I walked through this building I read story after story of courageous men and women who stood up for something they believed in. One group called the Freedom Riders even handed in their wills before they left, because they knew they would mostly be killed for their selfless act. They were working towards something that they would never see.
Or how about the sit ins? A group of college students (both African American and White) literally would practice getting food thrown on them and cigarettes burned on their heads, because they were determined to just sit in these segregated restaurants and not revolt back in violence. They wanted their kids to be able to eat lunch together. Or how about the police charts. I read through the police charts and calls for one month in the sixties. One (of hundreds) said that a young African American who had a mental illness was killed in front of his mother. She called in to report the incident and the police ruled it an accidental homicide.
Really?
An accidental homicide?
I walked through and was so frustrated and embarrassed at the fact that people my skin color afflicted so much pain and torment upon others. And not only my skin color, but people who claimed they knew Jesus Christ as the Son of God. As this thought was going through my head one of my new, amazing friends grabbed my arm and said, "Isn't this crazy? 40 years ago we wouldn't have been able to walk by each other like this."
Wow.
And I wondered what caused the KKK to do things in the name of Jesus like they did. And I wondered why God-fearing, bible-believing people still judge people TODAY based on their skin color. And I wondered why people still make jokes like it's over and past and we don't have to deal with it anymore so let's just make fun of it.
It's not over.
It's still very much alive.
You see Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis in the 1968. That still effects today. Why? My students. Their grandparents where here in this city when that happened.
The school I am teaching at is 99.4% African American. My school gets less money than a school a few miles away that is in a white community. I don't want to say why I think they do but it's pretty obvious.
So Rosa. You rock. I pray that I have the courage and passion to fight for my student's right to EQUAL education. Something they do not get right now.
Thanks for all your prayers. I'll update this more since I have internet. Promise :) LOVE YOU ALL! SO MUCH! Come visit :)
