I believe that the yearly Bonner Service Trips are effective in informing Bonners about the issues that communities similar to Trenton have dealt with in the past. Unless this information is actively being seeked through taking a college level class on the topic or through research at the expense of free time, it will not be learned. This is because American history classes at the high school level and below do not teach the severity of the way blacks have been treated for hundreds of years. I personally believe that white bystandership or even racism itself happens as a result of being uninformed about this history.

As a history major who actively studies this history, I was still very moved by watching Selma especially since the 1960’s are relatively recent history. Blacks were routinely dehumanized, discriminated against and even murdered in many cases throughout the United States. We are visiting Georgia, where black lynchings exceeded all other states. I stand by the conviction that any human being capable of empathsizing being knowledgeable about that issue would be essential in efforts to eradicate racism. Lynchings often happened when blacks tried exercise their Constitutional right to vote, tried unionizing for their rights as sharecroppers or simply when they demanded justice for unlawful treatment.

The most disturbing part about all of this is that instances of recent history such as the Charlottesville White Supremacist march, Dylan Roof’s black church murders, the race disparities in criminal justice system representation and Donald Trump’s campaign rooted in xenophobia proves that racism is far from being eradicated in the United States. Another factor worth noting is the fact that I visited Richmond last year and was struck by grandiose size and beauty of the Confederate monuments of people who fought to preserve slavery. People who did not share the American notion that every American deserves their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are being memorialized like gods while the injustices that blacks have faced are routinely swept under the rug as monuments to lynchings are just started to be constructed. I would not be surprised if I noticed this contradiction in Atlanta, in part to the fact that Heart of Atlanta Motel Supreme Court case is what made segregation effectively illegal. This case ruling segregation unconstitutional was not done because it was the right thing to do but because it restricted interstate commerce. I haven’t even been to Atlanta yet but I am anticipating I will learn alot about the the Civil Rights Movement and methods on how to address racism in America today.