The Aftermath

This trip sounds amazing from the beginning, but words cannot describe the impact that this trip has had on me as a future educator. I have had classes about the civil rights movement in the past, and I had felt like I had a fairly good grasp on what happened in the American deep south. However, this trip helped me to realize that there was, and still is, so much more for me to learn. The civil rights movement was not a "southern" movement. It was not restricted to the southern side of the Mason-Dixon line. Rather, It was an American movement. It impacted, and impacts, every person, citizen or not, living or visiting within the borders of the United States of America. This trip has put more faces, more names, and the reality of place to what I had learned in the classroom. Before I go any further, I would like to personally thank everyone who helped to make this trip a possibility. It has given me a personal, insightful, advantage when it comes to understanding what really happened during the civil rights movement. The visit to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN really helped to bring the trip to a close. There was something powerful, something eerie, and something fascinating about visiting the place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. But not only where he was assassinated, but where the fatal shot was fired from. Although Dr. King was a significant part of the American Civil Rights Movement this trip really helped to put it in perspective that he could not have accomplished what he had if it had not been for the millions of supporters, ordinary people like you and I, that had participated in the movement and helped it gain the momentum that it did. What made the movement successful is the ordinary people, who in a very critical time stood up for what was right and accomplished extraordinary things.