Students taking spring break bus tour of civil rights movement

Twenty-eight Salve Regina students are spending their spring break expanding their understanding of the civil rights movement, climbing aboard a southbound bus to explore the key sites of the era and interact with significant participants in one of the most important social movements of our time.

The students will be blogging throughout their trip. Read their accounts at civilrights.salvereginablogs.com.

Dr. Anthony Lopresti, associate professor of religious and theological studies, and Dr. Sami Nassim, director of multicultural programs, are leading students on the tour with scheduled stops in Greensboro, N.C. (International Civil Rights Center & Museum); Atlanta, Ga. (The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change); Montgomery, Ala. (Holt Street Baptist Church, First Baptist Church, Civil Rights Memorial, Freedom Rides Museum, Rosa Parks Museum); Birmingham, Ala. (Birmingham Civil Rights Institute); and Washington, D.C. (Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Lincoln Memorial).

The trip will pay special attention to the power of protest and the ways in which courage and a deep commitment to social justice mark the participants in this movement, both black and white.

“There are many sites in the United States that are very important when you recall the history of the civil rights movement and I thought it would be a great trip where we could build camaraderie in the process of serving educational goals – learning the history, seeing first-hand the places and understanding the experiences people went through to struggle for freedom, for things that most of us take for granted,” LoPresti said.

Some of the students participating will receive academic credit as part of RTS335: Social Ethics and HIS399: Special Topics courses.