The morning began like any other; I awoke to the sound of my alarm, though I had already been tossing and turning for about half an hour. I slowly and quietly crawled out of bed in an attempt to not wake my roommate. I turned on my flashlight as I threw a few last-minute items into my duffel bag. Fumbling in the dark, I managed to find the clothes I’d laid out the night before; a comfortable sweatshirt, a T-shirt, jeans, and my favorite pair of Converse sneakers. I was about to embark on a 12-hour journey to Charleston, South Carolina, so comfort was my primary goal for this part of the trip.
I looked at the clock to discover I was running late, so I quickly brushed my teeth, threw my toothbrush and toothpaste in my bag, and headed out the door to meet the team. As I walked briskly to the Stevens Student Center, I looked up and noticed a brilliant rainbow that painted the morning sky. Despite my untimeliness, I just had to stop and take a picture with my iPhone. I decided that being late wasn’t really a problem. I arrived at our meeting place to discover that only two other people were on time. I sat down and made myself comfortable as we awaited the rest of the team. I began to think about the heavy emotions I would likely feel over the course of the next few days, so I took advantage of the time I had to relax and think about nothing of significance. I didn’t want to weigh myself down with emotion too soon.
We visited our first stop only 15 minutes away from campus at the National Afro-American Museum in Wilberforce, Oh. on Central State University’s campus. I’d passed by the sign for the museum many times in the past, but I never thought about the history held within its walls. Once inside, we were told we could explore the entire museum however we chose to; we simply needed to meet back in the lobby in an hour.
Rather than follow the majority of the group to the left towards some large displays of major historical black figures, I walked to the right to explore some other displays on my own. After wandering through several small exhibits, I heard the faint sound of jazz music in the distance. I entered a white-walled room with more black-and-white pictures than I could count of jazz musicians who had made names for themselves throughout the 20th century.I enjoyed swaying to the beat of the music, but then I thought, I don’t understand why they’re so important. There’s nothing major or spectacular about black musicians. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.
My perspective began to change as I walked through the next exhibit. Through various pieces of art, poetry, and photography, the exhibit compared the Civil Rights Movement with today’s racially-charged events. Horrific images of black Americans being tortured by their white counterparts decorated every wall. Simple yet powerful poems and prose pieces with racial overtones hung on several rows of panels.
Behind these images, poems, and art pieces stood multiple silhouettes of black people who had been murdered. The key to this display, though, was the lack of dates on the silhouettes. One couldn’t tell which deaths had occurred during the Civil Rights Movement and which had occurred within the last year. Regardless of the era, people were being murdered. Black people were being murdered. I initially felt pity for them, but then I realized -- this didn’t happen to them. It happened to us.
On the ride from Cedarville to Charleston, I wrestled with conflicting thoughts and emotions. I came on this trip as part of a white culture hoping to learn more about black culture. As far as my mind was concerned, I was as white as they came. I felt comfortable that way. But as I stared into the images of black Americans running away from the clouds of tear gas surrounding them, I couldn’t help but imagine myself there. I wouldn’t have been the group releasing the tear gas; I would have been on the other side, running away to save myself. Even with this realization, though, I couldn’t shake my perspective; I still feel white.
After hours of riding in the rental van, we rolled into the parking lot of our hotel about 2 a.m. Sunday morning. By this point I was exhausted and grumpy, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into the warm bed awaiting me. I knew sleeping would be no problem; what concerned me was the event that would occur when I woke up. We were going to visit Mother Emanuel AME Church, where nine people had been shot and killed only three months prior. I wondered how the congregation would react to a random group of college students visiting simply because they were a black church that was now famous for being the target of racial bigotry. I was scared, but I really didn’t know why. All I knew was that I would have to leave my comfort behind.
We loaded everything into the vans the next morning after eating a quick breakfast and began our trek to Mother Emanuel. I had only been to one black church in my life, but the congregation only had about 20 members, so I knew this would be a different experience. As we climbed out of the vans and approached the building, I looked at the other people attending the church that morning.
I knew we would stand out, being a group of mostly young white people looking hopelessly confused in an AME church. We all enjoyed the singing and dancing and different types of praise and worship, but sitting through that service, I felt more like an outsider in an all-black congregation than I ever had in the multiple all-white congregations I’d been a member of throughout my life. I feel like I’m white, but I know that I’m black. In that moment, I could find no way to reconcile the two.
I couldn’t understand the frustration welling up inside me. Of course I was black; no one could dispute that -- but that’s exactly what I was attempting to do. I didn’t feel oppressed or discriminated. I received all the white privileges that my friends and family had. But that didn’t change my appearance, my skin color. Over the course of the trip thus far, I’d learned that the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t just a small piece of history that receives a page in our history textbooks.
The Civil Rights Movement is part of my history as a black American woman using the rights that those who fought in the 1960's worked so hard for me to have. They were beaten, mocked, tortured, and killed so that I and the millions of other black Americans today could live freely. Why? Because they looked like me. Because their skin color, my skin color, made them inferior. Had they done this in vain so that I, a black woman, could feel comfortable, as if I were white?
The frustration deepened when we reached Selma, AL. Dr. Murdoch, the professor who joined us for the trip, and his wife led the group to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where Bloody Sunday had occurred back in 1965. I walked hand-in-hand with white friends on either side of me. We reached the top of the bridge, and my mind brought up the images I had seen in the move "Selma." I imagined how the marchers must have felt when they looked down and saw police officers waiting, gas masks in hand, ready to stop them. Signs that read “Go home, niggers!” White people spewing foul language in their direction. I felt pain. I felt anger. I felt shame. There, at the top of the bridge, I felt “they” join “us” to become “we.”
When our group reached the other side of the bridge, I stood and hugged my friend, my white friend, for what felt like ten minutes. As our cheeks met one another, our tears merged with the others’ and dripped to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she told me, still working to hold back tears. “It’s not your fault. You don’t need to be sorry,” I responded. I couldn’t understand why she would apologize for something that happened 50 years ago, something she took no part in. “I know,” she said, “but I’m sorry that my race did that.”
I rarely identify myself with my race. That might partially be because I was adopted by white parents and raised in a white neighborhood, which begs the question: why does color define who you are? It’s nothing more than association, really. When we see a person of a particular skin color, we associate that color with a certain culture. When someone looks at me, do they see me as a “basic white girl” who loves UGG boots and pumpkin spice lattes? That’s what they might think if they see me with my parents or if they’ve only had a few interactions with me. Or do they envision me as a loud, independent black woman who don’t need no man? They really don’t know me if that’s who they think I am. I can’t help but wonder, though, why do these have to be divided?
When my friend and I stepped away from our embrace, we laughed as we looked at the redness in each other’s eyes. Both of us felt silly for crying as much as we did, but not for long. We were scarred by that event in the best way possible. There was no more “us vs. them” when we left the peak of that bridge. Two girls, one black and one white, were able to embrace one another after learning together about the divide between the two races. One girl, feeling white and being black, could merge two races into one identity.
We returned to Cedarville late the next night, and I stumbled out of the van, exhausted and anxiously awaiting my bed. I said goodbye to my team members, and I walked back to my townhouse. I felt strangely less comfortable as I quietly crept upstairs and into my bed. Something felt different. I felt different. I felt black.
