Darryl Grayson, Todd Allen and Tyson Goings gathered Tuesday afternoon to discuss the upcoming freedom tour at Bluffton University.
BLUFFTON — Students of Bluffton University will be taking a tour back in time to rediscover an era that had a profound impact on America.
Todd Allen, the vice president for diversity affairs and communications professor at Messiah University, spoke with students Tuesday afternoon to discuss the civil rights movement and its impact today. Bluffton Director of Diversity Tyson Goings will be leading students in a ‘Returning to the Roots of Civil Rights Tour’ in May along with Allen. Throughout the tour, 30 students will have the opportunity to visit sites where historical civil rights events took place.
Participants will visit sites in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Students will also have the opportunity to speak with people who played a role in history.
“When we are in New Orleans, we will be with descendants of Plessy and Ferguson,” said Allen. “Imagine the conversation you can have about race and the making of the United States with those figures.”
The 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson determined the “separate but equal” stance that birthed segregation.
”I want students to understand how we can use an experience like civil rights tourism to have the challenging conversations we need to have now about race, justice and reconciliation,” said Allen. “Part of the problem of figuring out the present moment is we don’t understand the moment that proceeded it. As the Bible says, ‘There is nothing new under the sun.’”
Allen also drew parallels between events in the civil rights movement and events taking place now. For example, in recent news, several people who entered the country without legal permission were flown from Florida to Martha’s Vineyard amidst intense debate over how to address increased migration across the southern border.
“What we are seeing elected officials do by taking human beings and using them as political pawns,” added Allen. “Placing them on planes and buses them shipping them north. That happened in 1962 which was called the reverse freedom rides. Imagine how much more responsive you could be if you knew not only that but the empowering stories as well.”
Allen concluded his forum with an excerpt from the poem, “Let America be America Again” by Langston Hughes.
“Let it be the dream that it used to be,” quoted Allen. “America has not always been an America for everyone. America never was America to me. Oh let America be America again, the land it has been yet and yet must be. The land where every American is free.”
