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"Few projects have captured my attention like the ‘Sojourn To The Past’ Civil Rights
Tour, the exceptional ‘living history’ lesson which has been put together by
Mr. Jeff Steinberg, a devoted high school teacher... My hope is that this will quickly
expand into a national program."
– MARTIN LUTHER KING III
| Upcoming trips 2009: |
| January 8th- 17th, 2009 February 12th - 21st, 2009 March 12th - 21st, 2009 April 9th - April 18th, 2009 |
Sojourn to the Past offers students, educators and parents the chance to travel for ten days
through the South visiting the most dramatic sites and hearing the speakers that first witnessed
and created the civil rights movement. This journey is important not only for the historic value,
but more importantly to teach the real lessons of the movement — tolerance, justice,
compassion, hope, non-violence and to help students today put those lessons into practice
back at home.
Atlanta, Ga. Then it's on by bus to the other sacred civil rights sites: Tuskegee, Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Little Rock and Memphis. Refer to the itinerary for a detailed description of each site.
At each stop you will visit with living heroes on the spot where their actions changed history
thirty plus years ago. As the Reverend Billy Kyles so eloquently puts it, Sojourn allows
participants to "touch history, and the people who made it." Reverend Kyles was a close
friend of Martin Luther King Jr. and was standing a few feet away from Dr. King when he was assassinated. Rev. Kyles meets with Sojourners at the Lorraine Hotel, site of the assassination.
Sojourners also hear from Martin Luther King III who talks about the need to carry on the
message of his father. You will hear Congressman John Lewis talk about getting beat by state troopers as he began the voting rights march in Selma Alabama.
You hear Minnijean Brown-Trickey and Elizabeth Eckford tell what it was like to be the first
African-Americans to attend Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas. Rev. Fred
Shuttlesworth talks about fighting for Civil Rights in Birmingham Alabama, and shows
Sojourners the site where a bomb went off feet from his head, destroying his house but not
injuring him. Chris McNair tells of losing his daughter in the Birmingham church bombing of
1963. The Vernon Dahmer family talks about losing a husband and father – killed by klan
members who opposed his efforts to register fellow African-Americans to vote.
Through the personal sacrifice of civil rights martyrs, and the exemplary lives of surviving
movement veterans, you will learn the courage of your own convictions. You learn respect
for one another and to grow within that respect toward love. You learn to confront and put
off hurtful language. You learn to forgive ignorance. You learn not to hate the haters, that they
need healing, too. You learn that indifference creates a moral vacuum where destruction and
evil flourish. You learn the importance of not becoming silent witnesses to cruelty, inequity and injustice. You discover the power in nonviolence and public activism. You learn the power of
the vote and how long and hard African Americans struggled for this essential right. You will
become members of a new generation of potential leaders, "ambassadors of tolerance."
