Post-Reflection

From Essence of Hope to the Center for Civil and Human Rights to the Morehouse College campus, our time in Atlanta last month not only allowed for many opportunities to learn about the history of Georgia and the United States, but made me far more aware of the past, present, and future of activism related to civil rights and social justice. Prior to this trip, I had never spent time in Atlanta aside from passing through, but our week in Georgia’s capital was filled with so many memorable experiences that I hope to continue to learn more and possibly return at some point soon.

Like in the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, racial and economic inequality is clearly everywhere in Atlanta and has been for centuries. During our visit to Sweet Auburn, the National Park Service tour guide explained to me how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. aspired to become a firefighter for the City of Atlanta after spending time in his neighborhood fire station as a child, but later learned that he would not be able to because of the fire department’s racist policies. Plus, as the tour guide at Dr. King’s childhood home shared, practices such as redlining in some of Atlanta’s suburban neighborhoods prevented residents of color who sought to move out of places like Sweet Auburn to newer neighborhoods like Inman Park from doing so for years. Additionally, at the Center for Civil and Human Rights, the horrors of 1906 Atlanta race riot were spelled out and showed the terror felt by African-American residents for those three days and beyond. While these cases date back decades and the forms of discrimination and injustice in the city have changed, our visit to Atlanta, while enjoyable for us, showed that these crises have evolved but still remain prevalent there and around the country today.

From the fact that MARTA does not travel to certain suburban counties because of racist policies to the separation of the city by Interstates 75 and 85 to displacement amid a lack of affordable housing during new development projects, there are a variety of concerning matters from Atlanta’s past and present. From what we witnessed in Atlanta, in the shadow of high-rise luxury hotels and executive office suites, many residents of the city are experiencing homelessness and like Trenton, there appear to be few services or shelters available to them at the municipal level.

At Essence of Hope, for the first few hours that we set up with the other volunteers, the line of clients was already beginning and was soon out the door and down the street by the time the food bank opened. While the people we met who were working or regularly volunteering there were clearly passionate about their facility and I enjoyed speaking with them, working at the front desk checking in clients gave me a completely different perspective on the non-profit and food insecurity in Atlanta. Many who I worked with were over the age of 70 and were understandably frustrated about the process it took them just to put food on the table for their families every week. From standing outside on line for what felt like an endless amount of time to come into the food bank only to wait longer because of malfunctioning computers to walking all the way home with groceries, it was clearly an arduous task not unlike the experiences faced by many patrons of food pantries in the Garden State.

Later on, our visit to Morehouse College, the walking tour of Sweet Auburn, the lecture at the Center for Civil and Human Rights, and other stops were quite informative and taught me a significant amount about HBCUs, local history, and social justice movements. Some of the best experiences from the week to me were our time as Bonners spent together exploring Atlanta and speaking with residents. Our visits to Piedmont Park, the Sun Dial, and Centennial Olympic Park and going out to dinner in Midtown allowed for us to better get to know each other and to see more of the city. Plus, speaking with Atlantans along the way both at our service sites and at the places we visited allowed me to learn more about the region and the daily lives of residents there that I otherwise would not have known. I even ran into a volunteer at Essence of Hope who graduated from my high school in North Jersey 44 years ago.

In my next two years at TCNJ, unfortunately, I am still not sure what specific action steps can be taken to bring change to our Bonner program. I know that it will be extremely useful to continue comparing and contrasting TCNJ Bonner with other Bonner programs like the one at Morehouse in order to make changes and to see how non-profits like Essence of Hope operate similarly and differently from our community partners in Mercer County, though I am not sure how we as Bonners will be allowed to implement such adjustments. However, from this experience, it is clear that more educational opportunities of this sort and learning from other Bonner programs can be extremely beneficial for all of us. I am grateful for our time spent together in Atlanta and look forward to similar experiences in the future.