Students to retrace freedom rides

UW–Madison students will explore the historical meanings of the Civil Rights Movement in a traveling class to be convened at locations throughout the South.

Students will travel by bus May 29-June 14 as part of “Freedom Ride: The Sites and Sounds of the Civil Rights Movement.” This spring marks the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, a direct-action campaign organized by the Congress of Racial Equality to challenge segregation in interstate travel and expose the glaring indignities and injustice of Jim Crow laws.

With the bus as a rolling classroom, UW–Madison professors Tim Tyson, Craig Werner, and Steve Kantrowitz will use music, film, literature, and history to help students understand the themes that have shaped democratic possibility over the past century, including race, gender, social class, grassroots community organizing, and non-violent direct action.

“Crossing the distance between Madison and Mississippi can help to bridge the distance between the past and the present, and between our learning and our lives,” says Tyson, a professor in the Afro-American Studies Department.

The itinerary includes stops in communities where students will meet local people who made the movement a reality (see attached itnerary for highlights). Class participants will discuss issues with faculty and students from universities across the South, and visit historical sites. Students will begin and end the trip in Wisconsin, studying the freedom struggle in Madison and Milwaukee.

The class, offered during the three-week summer intersession, begins Tuesday, May 29, with three days of classroom work before departure Friday, June 1.

Upon return, the students will share their experiences in a campuswide forum entitled, “Freedom Then and Freedom Now.”

“This trip will offer students a chance to seriously grapple with our complicated racial realities,” says Danielle McGuire, a co-organizer of the trip. “They’ll be able to immerse themselves in new and sometimes uncomfortable environments, and be able to meet with some of the people who helped change our country.”

Tyson, who also took a group of students to Mississippi four years ago, says the goal is “for students to experience their learning at a deep enough emotional level that they have access to it, not merely for the final exam, but for the rest of their lives.”

“Freedom Ride: The Sites and Sounds of the Civil Rights Movement” was organized by the Campus Community Partnerships team at University Health Services, the Morgridge Center for Public Service, and faculty from the Afro-American Studies and History departments.The trip is supported by a grant from the Anonymous Fund. Scholarships were provided by the Verna Hill Memorial Fund.