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On April 25th, thirteen faculty, alumni, staff and friends of Bank Street traveled to Tennessee. The focus of this 7th Long Trip was the Environment and Social Justice planned over several months by Alumna Carol B. Hillman, faculty Sal Vascellaro and me. We spent six intense days learning about the impact of strip mining on the environment, visiting historic sites and listening to and conversing with community leaders, museum educators and elected officials. We learned about a range of current issues and heard stories from earlier days, observed the cultural norms, made new friends and enjoyed the cuisine of the south, including collard greens and sweet potato pie. We learned so much that most of us are still processing the information and its impact in terms of our work and daily lives.

We chose Tennessee for its civil rights history and to re-visit the Highlander (Folk) Center, a site for one of the earlier Long Trips (1948) led by Eleanor Hogan, a close associate of Lucy Sprague Mitchell. Founded in 1932 by Myles Horton, Highlander had been a major force in the 1930's labor movements, the 1940's-1960's civil rights movement and the Appalachian People's Movement in the 70's and 80's. The Highlander Center was also the site of a nursery program founded and run by Bank Street's own Claudia Lewis, who taught Children's Literature at the college for many years. During our stay we learned that people interested in effecting change continue to meet at the Highlander Center, now in a new location, to learn, teach and build broad-based movements for social change. We also viewed the powerful film, "You Got To Move" about grassroots organizing and the civil rights movement, that gave people the courage to find their own voice and become social activists.

We had the pleasure of meeting and being entertained by Guy and Candie Carawan, singers, storytellers, authors and colleagues of the late Myles Horton. Guy and Candie regaled us with stories and songs of the labor and civil rights movements. It was Guy who in his many training workshops encouraged the singing of "We Shall Overcome," which became the anthem of the Civil Rights movement. Their personal connections with the many individuals who visited the Center during the 60's made the civil rights movement come alive for us. There was Rosa Parks who was trained for the bus boycott at Highlander. It was not by accident, but rather by a planned strategy, that she sat in the front seat of the bus and would not move. Candie fondly recalled that Rosa Parks was "always up to something!" There was also Woody Guthrie who brought Peter Seeger, singer, activist and environmentalist, to the Highlander Center, Septima Clark, who developed the concept of citizenship schools and was the Director of Workshops at Highlander and Bernice Reagon, activist and founder of the a cappella group, Sweet Honey in the Rock. Before leaving Highlander, we presented Pam McMichael, Acting Director, with a framed photograph of Claudia Lewis teaching Appalachia children in 1948. We also left achival photographs, including one of Bank Street Graduate students from the 1948 trip listening to Myles Horton speak.

We left Highlander to travel to the University of Tennessee where we first visited the architecturally appealing space housing the Black Cultural Center. We met with Dean Rifkin, Law School faculty and public interest attorney working on behalf of citizen organizations opposed to strip mining. Professor Rifkin described his work as using legislation to block or slow the efforts of big companies to mine coal without the proper permits. On the previous day, our group had visited the grassroots organization, SOCM, Save Our Cumberland Mountains, where we learned of the damaging effects of mountaintop removal to extract coal. Among the effects are water pollution, (we observed sediments in a nearby stream), landslides, and the destruction of wildlife. SOCM's overall goal is to improve the quality of life for residents through a focus on environment, social and economic justice. Staff member Jonathan Dudley showed a videotape which captured for us how the community came together to preserve their environment.

We were able to balance the intense social studies learning experiences on this Long Trip with the warmth and genuine responsiveness of the people we met wherever we went. Our connections with Rick Mosley, a local Knoxville resident, enabled us to visit several places where the African American communities were proactively engaged in community building and economic empowerment. We visited the Asbury Methodist Church to meet with the Superintendent of Clinton Schools, Dr. Jerry Woods who drew a gathering of key citizens including the City Manager, the Vice-Mayor, Rev. Alan Jones and a reporter from The Courier News that later featured our visit on its front page. Drawing our attention to a large black and white painting in the room, our hosts shared moving accounts of how black and white citizens in Clinton came together in 1956 to desegregate the Clinton High School, the first such activity in the southeast. All the key figures during this historic event were in the painting by Alan Jones, who, using his art, wanted to preserve the story of how the community came together to support integration and to maintain peace during a challenging time. We were all moved by the humanity of these events.

What stood out for me was the courage of the African American children and families and their white supporters during those turbulent yet energizing times. We heard similar stories of courage and risk taking at the Maryville College and from the Beck Cultural Center's Director, Avon Rollins, who was in the march on Washington, These stories were reinforced later in Nashville by Rachel Lawson's deeply moving and historically rich oral and video presentations on the nonviolence movement undertaken by Fisk University students. The Civil Rights Room has recreated the infamous lunch counters of the 60's. The Fisk students were trained by James Lawson, who had studied the nonviolence approach in India. When the students were arrested for sitting at the lunch counters, their white student allies with "pockets full of dimes," and unnoticed by the police, would call the organizers from nearby telephone booths for replacements who soon arrived to continue the sit ins.

We toured the picturesque Haley Farm, once the home of Alex Haley, famed author of "Roots," and "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" (written with Malcolm X). The Haley Farm is now owned by the Children's Defense Fund. This was a perfect place for meditation and reflection. We visited the Appalachia Museum, an open air museum featuring the arts, artifacts and some early buildings of Appalachia, including a one room schoolhouse. We saw the awesome Norris Dam, the first dam constructed by the TVA. We met with John Sibyl of the Literacy Imperative which offers underserved communities a place for children and adults to come and browse through their extensive warehouse or purchase books for $2 each. We ended this full day by visiting the Coker Creek Gallery, an oasis in Appalachia, for a basket making demonstration and a shopping spree, rounded off with a fabulous dinner at the Bistro by the River in Tellico Plains.

Then it was on to Nashville for our final two days. We received another heartwarming welcome from Alumna Elizabeth Atack, Education Coordinator at the Belle Meade Plantation and Beth Cooper, Education Director who is about to complete her degree in Bank Street's Museum Leadership Program. Elizabeth took us on a tour of the Mansion. This plantation bred horses and was considered the "top nursery and stud farm in the South in the 1870's and 1880's." Many of the enslaved workers, and later, freedmen, who chose to remain there, were skilled groomers and horse breeders. Elizabeth discusses the institution of slavery in all her tours with children and adults. We left Elizabeth and Beth with gifts from the Bank Street Alumni Office and headed for the General Jackson Showboat, the largest paddlewheel boat still in operation, for dinner and a most enjoyable show.

Day Five found us on the beautiful campus of Fisk University where we visited Jubilee Hall, saw the impressive paintings of the Jubilee Singers and read about their heroic international tours to raise money for their university. One of these paintings showed the group with Queen Victoria in London. The story is told that because the students were so committed to saving their college, they did not graduate from Fisk University.

After lunch, we returned to the Nashville Public Library's Civil Rights Room, sat around the recreated lunch counter and engaged in our personal reflections on the Long Trip to Tennessee. We were all clearly moved by the social justice themes highlighted throughout the trip. One member indicated that the trip illuminated the struggle for her while for another it was about empowering people to follow their vision. For many, it was about the pain and damage done to people (without power). Collectively, we agreed that we had met some extraordinary people. We thought about how much we had learned from real people, how much we had forgotten, and how little had been taught to us in our schools. As we discussed the importance of understanding history in our own lives, Sal reminded us that history needs to be taught with connections to children's lives as advocated in Joan Maynard's work at the Weeksville Museum in Brooklyn.

While the connections with new friends and colleagues will continue to grow and take different forms over the coming months, participants felt committed to supporting both the Highlander Center and SOCM during the year. Hence, in addition to fulfilling Lucy Sprague Mitchell's goals of extending learning beyond one's environment, we have made a real commitment to do something concrete for an individual or group following each trip. We will also compile and publish the writings on the trip by members of our group. We had learned so much!