Education

Michigan high school students head south to learn more about civil rights era

Michigan Public | By Stateside Staff

Published July 6, 2016 at 4:34 PM EDT

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Dorothy Aldridge and Sylvia Morgan in front of an exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum? in Memphis? showcasing Detroit activist Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan while driving black voting rights activists between Selma and Montgom";s:

Eric L. Hood

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MCHR Freedom Tour 2016? students? marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL- the site of the infamous Bloody Sunday police attack.";s:

Eric L. Hood

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The MCHR Freedom Tour 2016 at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, AL. The Freedom Tour is pictured in front of EJI's soil collection project that is collecting soil from communities where lynchings have occurred across America to serve as a visual

Eric L. Hood

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The MCHR Freedom Tour 2016 at the Mason Temple in Memphis, TN, where King delivered his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, the day before his assassination.

Eric L. Hood

How do you get students to really appreciate history?

One powerful way is to get those students out of the classroom and take them to historic sites, bringing that history off the page and making it real.

That's the idea behind the Freedom Tour.

It's organized by the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights.

The Freedom Tour takes motivated students from schools all over Metro Detroit to the South, where they can walk in the footsteps of the civil rights movement.

It can be a life-changing experience.

We were joined today by Dorothy Aldridge, one of the adults who went along on the ten-day excursion as a mentor, and Sylvia Morgan, a 17-year-old high school student at Detroit's Cody High School just back from the Freedom Tour.

GUESTS Dorothy Aldridge is a lifelong civil rights activist. Sylvia Morgan is a student ad Detroit's Cody High School.