Bethel Group Takes Civil Rights Her­itage Trip

MISHAWAKA – Dur­ing spring break, a group of Bethel stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff trav­eled on a Civil Rights Her­itage Trip. The trip was led by Brent LaV­i­gne, Ph.D., vice pres­i­dent for in­sti­tu­tional ad­vance­ment, with his wife, Michaele; and by Theodore Williams, Ph.D., chair of lit­er­a­ture and lan­guage, with his wife, Nicole. The group left on Feb. 27 and re­turned on March 4, spend­ing six days vis­it­ing his­tor­i­cal sites in the Amer­i­can South.  

One stu­dent who at­tended was Kendall Clark. 

“My time on the trip was great,” Clark said. “Some of the ex­pe­ri­ences were heavy, while oth­ers were light­hearted and fun.”  

Ac­cord­ing to Clark, some of the best high­lights of the trip were un­planned events that turned into beau­ti­ful op­por­tu­ni­ties. 

“We were in Al­abama look­ing for a bath­room with Pro­fes­sor Theo’s wife, and [we were] wel­comed into a store af­ter walk­ing around hot, thirsty and need­ing a re­stroom,” Clark said. “The lady wel­comed us in­side even though the front sign said no pub­lic bath­room. Not only did she wel­come us in­side, but she shared her story with us.” 

 The lady turned out to be none other than Paulette Porter Roby, chair of the Civil Rights Ac­tivist Com­mit­tee in Birm­ing­ham and one of the civil rights foot sol­diers who marched with Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. She shared with the group sev­eral ac­counts about her ex­pe­ri­ences and an­swered ques­tions they had about the move­ment, tak­ing the time for per­sonal con­nec­tion and demon­strat­ing en­thu­si­asm in shar­ing her story.  

“When we were get­ting ready to leave the next day, she showed up last minute and took pic­tures and gave us hugs,” Clark said.  

Clark was touched by the kind­ness Roby demon­strated for this ran­dom group of col­lege stu­dents she met by chance.  

This en­counter was also en­cour­ag­ing to Clark as she con­tem­plated her rea­son for sign­ing up to go on the trip: to search out the truth and a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of what re­ally hap­pened dur­ing the civil rights era.  

“We were taught in school that it hap­pened, but [they] never went into de­tail or taught the dark sto­ries,” Clark said.  

Clark also shared that it is dis­cour­ag­ing how much this sup­pres­sion of in­for­ma­tion is still hap­pen­ing to­day, even as both sys­temic and overt ex­pres­sions of racism are still hap­pen­ing as well. De­spite the dif­fi­culty of wrestling with these dif­fi­cult top­ics, Clark is grate­ful for the ex­pe­ri­ence and en­cour­ages oth­ers to par­tic­i­pate if given the op­por­tu­nity. 

“I would def­i­nitely rec­om­mend Bethel do this trip again,” Clark said. “I got to meet new peo­ple, hug, cry and pray to­gether [when we were] not sure what to do.” 

To learn more about the trip, reach out to the lead­ers or ask your peers. A to­tal of 19 stu­dents went on the trip, and they are ex­cited to ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties for shar­ing about their ex­pe­ri­ences in the days ahead.