Today was a contemplative day for me as well as Martin Luther King Jr.'s day. I woke up, dressed up with some cool Christian Rock tunes to get ready for the day, packed up, and went down for breakfast with my roomies, which consisted of fruit, an egg and ham breakfast sandwich, and a knock off cinnamon roll. Afterwards, we left Country Inn and Suites and entered the bus, everyone pretty and trim.
After some minutes, we reached Ebenezer Baptist Church. The weather was absolutely lovely. I saw ladies dressed mostly in red and some in blue walk toward the front doors. (Turns out that the wave of ladies in red were part of a sorority Delta Sigma Theta.) I walked into the church and was greeted with an enormous sanctuary, ringing with hand bell choir music. (They were rehearsing.) I was amazed by the vast amount of space, for the pews and for the church choir, as well as how high the ceiling was.
The church service started, and right away I knew the timpani were playing. I excitedly looked around and found them. I loved the music. (Although I didn't understand all the words they were singing.) I loved the energy, and power that was put into every piece of the service. I especially liked thought the part about revelation to be interesting in the service. I thought about how my recent essay I wrote about Ta-Nehisi Coates' and To Pimp a Butterfly's, regarding hope and attitude was prevalent in the sermon. He agreed with me that we need to be hopeful and should keeping fighting for what we believe in. After holding hands, we finished the sermon. (I think there was music playing as we were heading out.)
We were free to do our own devices for around 30 minutes. With a friend, we went toward the visitor center, to the Ebenezer Baptist Church that Martin Luther King Jr. went to and preached at, we saw his tomb and his wife's tomb above a clear pool of water as well as the Eternal flame across from it.
When it was time to go. We made our way to the bookshop right next to Martin Luther King Jr.'s house that he grew up in for his first 12 years of life. We met up with our ranger named Marques and went over to the other house.
The tour was fast paced, that I could barely write down all the information I heard, as fast as I could. It was very interesting. The most interesting thing about the house was learning how Martin Luther King Jr.'s parents raised him. One example was how he was exposed to politics and the newspaper and was encouraged to speak about it at the dinner table, compared to other families around that time who believed that kids shouldn't be able to do that. I think that is one reason why he was interested in making a change in his community and to other parts of the country because he was encouraged to speak up. That reminded me of what we talked about yesterday at the museum, such that older generations teach there kids how to react and perceive the world.
After the tour, we had at least an hour of free time. I hung out with more friends as we walked out in the perfect imaginable weather, going back to the bookstore, reading poetry, eating Cheez-its that I somehow fit in my dress pocket, and attempting to get peach tea at a sketchy bar. In general, I really enjoyed the aura of Atlanta and specifically the area of Sweet Auburn.
Afterwards, we went back on the bus and got off again around where the Center for Civil and Human Rights was. First, we ate lunch, I ate a sandwich, and headed in.
The museum itself was breathtaking. There was so much information that I wanted to read but I knew I just didn't have enough time to fully absorb it all. The first floor had documents from Martin Luther King Jr. and a panel that had "I had a dream" projected in many languages, including Russian. Upstairs on the second floor and part of the third floor was dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement, while the other part of the third floor was dedicated to Human Rights.
The Civil Rights part made me nostalgic specifically about my lower school and middle school experiences regarding this movement. I was inspired and proud of my younger self to be so interested in this movement and to know how important it was. I also felt so lucky that I was able to get an intro to the movement at an early age, and I found it also interesting how parents brought there little kids to the exhibit. I wonder what they thought and understood what went on and what is going on today in terms of racial politics.
Also during this exhibit, I sat at a counter which mimicked being at a sit in. I don't know why, but I felt that I was thinking outside of the threats the headphones were feeding into my ears. I was thinking to myself, I know that I am not worthless, which brought me to a state of calm. It felt meditative. I also remember hearing broken glass and evaluating myself that if I were put into a situation where someone knocked me in the head with a glass bottle, would I let my self bleed and stay down?
After checking out the Human Rights exhibit, I went downstairs meeting up with the rest of the group and headed outside. We took a group photo and went back to the bus.
On the bus, we had some very thoughtful, powerful, and intense reflections. They consisted of what it is like to feel black, how to love ourselves, how we need to stick together in these tough times, how we just like Martin Luther King Jr. are all people and that we have the power to make change just like him, how we shouldn't be compared to chickens and separating black chickens from white chickens, about the generation after us, about safe spaces, etc. It was truly interesting what other people thought and what they had to say.
This led into socializing and nap time, until we arrived at the Barbecue place. I shared a barbecue family meal with 7 others, which had pork, beef, chicken, turkey, ribs, sausages, with Mac and cheese, collard greens, mashed potatoes (not fries) as sides. It seemed small at first, but quite frankly wasn't as small as it looked.
Faster than expected, we arrived at the Quinta, put our stuff into the rooms and got ready to sleep, just as I will in a few moments. Tomorrow will be a heavy day, but I hope that we will be able to make it through, supporting each other every step of the way.
-Nina Feliciano, The Park School
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