Civil Rights Movement Seminar

VISION

Spring Break 2024

Duration: 8 days (March 2–March 10, 2024)

Contact: Dr. Ivy George (ivy.george @gordon.edu)

SOC292: Civil Rights Movement Seminar (4 credits)

This seminar examines the role of place and social movements through the lens of race relations between white and black populations in shaping the movement of American democracy and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The reverberations of these civil rights movements continue in American politics and culture into the twenty-first century.

Students will visit historic sites of resistance and victory in churches, educational institutions, and legal advocacy centers. They will travel to rural and urban communities where historical figures like Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, John Lewis were actively involved in organizing resistance movements. Students will also visit the Equal Justice Initiative work being undertaken by Bryan Stevenson. Fulfills Sociology minor elective; Black Studies minor elective.

LOCATION

Louisiana

Whitney Plantation

Mississippi

Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
Medgar Evers home
Emmett Till, Fannie Lou Hamer sites

Tennessee

National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel

Alabama

Kelly Ingram Park
16th Ave Street Baptist Church
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
Edmund Pettus Bridge
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
Southern Poverty Law Center
Rosa Parks Museum
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
Tuskegee University

Georgia

National Civil Rights Museum
Martin Luther King Jr., National Historic Site
Center for Civil and Human Rights
Sunday service at Ebenezer Baptist Church

CURRICULUM

Preparation for the seminar will begin in January 2024. The group will meet on Zoom once a week for 1.5 hours to discuss assigned readings and films. Each week, the professor will provide a writing prompt based on the materials covered. Students will submit a three-page double-spaced reflection weekly until the tour commences in March. At the end of the seminar, students will submit a three-page summary report.

COST

The total cost will be approximately $3,900* and will include: