The Azalea Room: There and Back Again

Two months after the seventh UUSC Freedom Summer: A Civil Rights Journey, 17-year-old participant Maisie Taibbi recounts the life-changing experience in the blog post below. From the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, she played a key leadership role on the trip with other youth and was the go-to photographer for the group (many of the Civil Rights Journey photos on our Flickr page are courtesy of Taibbi).

There were three overarching questions asked of us during our journey to the South:

• What do you most hope to learn?
• What do you most hope to change about yourself?
• What do you most hope to change about your community?

We were instructed to consider these three thoughts throughout the week and to answer them whenever a meaningful response moved us to elaborate.

I have discovered that the point of these questions was to create a connection between what we would come to discover about the civil-rights movement and social-justice efforts today. These questions were necessary to watch how our responses would grow and change during our time together.

We met first in the Azalea Room at the Days Inn Atlanta. Our first night was perhaps the most thought-provoking. We heard from longtime civil-rights worker Lonnie King and survivor of the Sixteenth St. Baptist Church bombing Barbara Cross. I don't know if we were expecting Barbara's tears or if we were even ready for them, but her depth of passion fueled a desire in all of us to know more. From there, we dove in heart first. I sobbed when she revealed the title of that Sunday service: "A Love That Forgives." 

During the course of the week, we heard from other civil-rights pioneers, such as original Tuskegee Airmen Val Archer and Commissioner Eves, as well as civil-rights attorney Gary Atchison. All of these amazing people commonly spoke of one specific necessity for moving forward — education. The education of our youth is imperative to our success as a nation.

We visited countless museums and important civil-rights sites throughout Georgia and Alabama. We even had a chance to touch the waters of the civil-rights memorial and add our names to the Wall of Tolerance inside the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The most remarkable trait of the civil-rights movement was the love-over-violence attitude of its leaders: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that," said Martin Luther King, Jr.  

Going into the trip, I didn't expect anything from my fellow participants — but as each day passed, we began to rely more and more on each other as fellow "appreciators" who know exactly how dumbfounded you are when you begin to understand this country's history a little better.

On this journey, I was struck with the realization that I didn't know how to answer those three questions. The measly three lines of space I left for each would never be enough to recount what I had just absorbed. I had been left speechless and hungry for justice. I strongly believe that all of us were changed by this experience and that it will never fade away. We have all been left with the responsibility to share the wealth and advocate for this rare and enriching journey. 

On our final night together, we found ourselves back in the Azalea Room, though we were not the same awkward group who had left that room a week before. When we parted from each other, we had grown and matured. Our closing reflection filled the room with our stories and newfound relationships. I have the deepest respect for every person in that remarkable group, and I hope that our time together will remain imprinted on our hearts forever.