Civil Rights: Day 5

After a busy day in Alabama touring the 16^th Street Baptist Church where the four little girls were killed in 1963 and traveling from Selma to Montgomery on the same roads the marchers once traversed in 1965, we woke up at 6:30 for our drive through the Mississippi Delta. After travelling for an hour or two through the Delta, we were astonished at the vast expanse of cotton fields and the absence of houses and cars. Our first stop was at Money, Mississippi. Money was a small town where the young Emmett Till was murdered for whistling at a white woman at the Bryant Store. Despite playing a major role in the Civil Rights Movement and being a catalyst to the movement, we were surprised to see the Bryant Store in its current condition. It is easy to tell that the Bryant Store was old, and it looks like the store could fall down any minute. The wooden walls were barely attached, and the ceiling was destroyed. It’s shocking that such an important place in history has been almost completely abandoned. The State of Mississippi does not want to buy this property for a historical museum, and the price of the store has been decreased from 6 million to 50 thousand dollars. The next destination was the grave of Fannie Lou Hamer. Engraved on her tombstone is her famous saying, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” This refers to her struggle for civil rights. Fannie was important to the movement. She attempted to register blacks in the Mississippi area to vote, and she also ran for Congress as a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. After visiting her gravesite, we headed for Abe's in Clarksdale, where we had pulled pork sandwiches.  Then we stopped by to drop off the donations raised in our two bake sales to the Aaron E. Henry Community Health Center that runs the Mobile Health Units in Clarksdale. We were pleased to see the happiness in the director’s face when he saw our $800 donation and children’s books. After dropping off the books and the donation, we went to see the actual Mobile Health Unit. The bus has three rooms to treat patients, and the workers were very happy to be around and help the underprivileged kids. Finally, we drove for another few hours to arrive in Memphis Tennessee where we will be looking at the famous Beale Street and visiting the place where Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed.  Despite the heavy travelling today, it has been an enlightening experience. We would have never thought that people could live in such poor conditions as they do in the Mississippi Delta.

By, Vlady Rachev & Jaylen Jennings