These are diary entries that I wrote throughout my ten-day Sojourn to the Past trip on February 14-23. Each entry is posted here two weeks after it was originally written, due to the provision that I didn’t have any computer or internet access during my trip. Be sure to check out my other Sojourn to the Past coverage. Enjoy.

Today was another very interesting day, but it was one that I had been looking forward to during the whole trip. After breakfast at our hotel in Memphis, we boarded the busses and took our two-and-a-half hour drive over to Little Rock, AK. Along the way, we had a review bus lesson on the Little Rock Nine, and then we watched a documentary film called Journey to Little Rock: The Untold Story of Minnijean Brown-Trickey.

We arrived at Little Rock Central High School, home of the first integration of a public school in the South fifty years ago this year. And man, the place is huge. The whole campus is two city blocks by two city blocks, and as for the campus, it starts out on the sides at two stories, moving towards the center at three stories, then going up to four, and then finally the center of campus has five stories! All I can say is that I assume that the kids that go there sure get their exercise during passing periods!

We started out by visiting the Central High School Historical Site Museum across the street from the school. (Imagine your own high school not only being a National Historic Site, but also having its own museum and gift shop across the street!). The museum was quite a bit smaller than that huge multi-million dollar place we saw in Birmingham, but this one focused on the 1957 integration, on the issues surrounding the integration (such as comparing how Central was funded in comparison to the black high schools in Little Rock), and life after the integration crisis in Little Rock. After that, we had the opportunity to hit the gift shop, where I spent my last dollars on two books and a T-shirt. They also had a corner where they were giving away leftovers from their 50th Anniversary Celebration last September.

After that, we went to Central High School and sat down around their courtyard/reflecting pool. The school doesn’t allow most outside groups to come onto their campus, but they allow our group to come on, which is very exciting. We sat down there and reflected on everything that we learned about in the integration, and asked ourselves if we would allow our friends and classmates to use violent, racist, or other hurtful language towards others without intervening, resolving that we would not do so. We then recreated the experience that the Little Rock Nine had in September 1957 by walking up the front steps of the school.

After that, we all went inside to Central’s auditorium (yes, it’s bigger than the puny auditorium that we’ve got at Aragon), where we met Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine. We welcomed her by giving her a standing ovation in sign language, because she still has flashbacks of her first day at Central and loud noises sometimes cause these flashbacks to occur. In addition to talking about her experiences, she talked about how hurtful language truly was in her life and how it is up to all of us to stop it from spreading. She then had to go back to work (she gave up her lunch hour to come and speak with us).

We then got our lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and boarded the bus for the two-and-a-half hour drive back to Memphis. During the ride, we had our final bus lesson, reviewing Dr. King’s last day on earth. When we arrived in Memphis, we went outside of the Lorraine Motel (now a National Civil Rights Museum), which was where Dr. King was shot and killed on April 4, 1968. We sat down in front of the commemorative plaque beneath the balcony where Dr. King was shot, and we listened to King’s “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech, which he made the night before he was killed. We then spent time there reflecting on Dr. King, and then boarded the bus.

The bus returned to the hotel, and after about an hour of free time, we went to our last night activity: clubbing on Beale Street. Though frankly, I didn’t really participate in the dancing (not my thing), however the food was good, and inside, there was a family of five that was playing live country music, including the lead singer who was a boy of five or six years old and who also played the accordion, and boy, he was pretty good. I personally had a better time listening to that inside then dancing to the loud godawful rock music they were playing on the cold, outside patio for the majority of the Sojourn group.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Memphis, and then we’ll be headed back home. My, time flies, doesn’t it?

Tags: Arkansas, Beale Street, Central High School, diaries, Dr. King, Elizabeth Eckford, gift shop, Little Rock, Little Rock Nine, Lorraine Motel, Memphis, Minnijean Brown-Trickey, museum, National Historic Site, Sojourn to the Past