Last semester, College of the Ozarks sent eight students and three faculty members on the Civil Rights Movement trip through historical locations in the South.
Dr. David Dalton, Distinguished Professor of History and Elizabeth Hoyt Clark Chair of Humanities at College of the Ozarks, led the trip. He has impacted the lives of students for over three decades through his love of American history and by leading students on once-in-lifetime trips, both domestically and internationally.
College of the Ozarks offers the Civil Rights Movement course every even-year spring, and this semester, eight students had the opportunity to combine classroom lectures with real experiences on the trip to better appreciate the heroic work of Civil Rights activists and events. The course provides an examination of the major themes, individuals, groups, and events of the struggle for black equality from the Reconstruction era to the present.
“Simply put, there is no better teacher than for a student to be able to walk in the footsteps of history,” Dalton said. “I can lecture about a topic. I can show students videos of what actually happened, but nothing compares to when a student walks in the places of history, tracing the steps of those fighting for their civil rights.”
The first stop on the trip was Little Rock Arkansas Central High School, where desegregation by nine students became a crisis in 1957. Students were able to see the school and stand in the place where history happened. The second stop was Money, Mississippi, where 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered for speaking to a white woman in 1955. Students then had the opportunity to travel to Jackson, Mississippi, to the home of Medgar Evers, who was the Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary. Evers was murdered in his own driveway.
The students also traveled to sights in Alabama, experiencing the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and 16th St. Baptist Church, which was home to the 1963 protests that landed Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in jail and drew national attention for the brutality experienced by young marchers. The trip ended in Memphis, Tennessee, at the Lorraine Motel, (which is the National Civil Rights Museum today), where Rev. King was assassinated in 1968.
“From this trip, I gained a new sense of humility,” said Alison Wagner, a senior history major. “Walking through the memorials and museums put into perspective all the stories we learned in the lecture. I learned to actively listen and mindfully participate in difficult conversations to create a better future. From walking through the history we learned in class, I could see how history is still playing in 2024. Dr. Dalton’s personal and thorough understanding of the area also added a deeper connection to the history and the trip.”
Dalton knows the impact that a travel through history provides for students and is thankful for even one life to be changed.
“There is no higher reward for a teacher than to have a student share that some site we visited or some story a guest speaker told impacted them in ways they could not have imagined,” Dalton said. “If just one student life was influenced, then the trip was indeed worth it.”
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