Monday, January 17, 2011

01/09/2010 Atlanta, GA / Birmingham, AL

Today is a new day. Technically speaking, it was the first day during which I experienced civil rights movement officially. Having a very quick breakfast, our group left the hotel heading to a Church named Ebenezer Baptist.

Born in the city Atlanta, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is like a blowing flag. The church is only two blocks away from Martin’s birth house. We walked into the church and the choir was singing. With a relaxed melody, the current bishop started an emotional speech. It’s like the time went back to that date, to the era at which Martin reminded his congregants to lean on the God who delivered them through slavery and who would surely deliver them through the fight for civil rights. I wasn’t usually going to any church after I came to America and I don’t have any type of religion. However, it’s not represent that I don’t have a belief. I do believe that there is a time people could regard each other as their own brother and sister just like the Bible has been saying. Someone said that the power of the religion is mighty, because in and outside of a church, people act different ways. In the church, we sing, hug and kiss, but outside of the church, people hate, suspect, envy… Definitely there are lots of things we still need to do for our society, but at least, religion has given us a way, a way to diminish misunderstanding, discriminations and build a bridge between black and white and between our hearts, which also was the goal that all the civil rights warriors wanted to achieve.

Then we went to the museum of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In this museum, majority of the information are about him. So I learned something more about MLK, such as his wife and children and legends that happened on this man I don’t know, even the name I have heard when I was born. The “eternity flame of freedom” is burning beside the church and will keep burning and passing the story from one generation to another…

In the afternoon, we arrived at another city – Birmingham. We visited the Birmingham Civil rights Institute which has stored substantial amount of valuable history about the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham. Also, in the institute, I found a brief intro about what happened in China in 1989, what is called Tiananmen Event. I don’t know a lot about this and my parents had never told me anything about it. Despite that the government at that time was right or not and the angry students were right or what, it’s good to know some information about civil rights movement happened in my country, besides, it ‘s good to know there are something in the world, nowadays, that do need everyone’s efforts.

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