Juniors Visit Museum & Memorial in Montgomery

by Head of Community Engagement Gordon Mathis

On Wednesday, September 13, the members of the junior class traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit the Legacy Museum: From Slavery to Incarceration and the Memorial for Peace and Justice.

All juniors are enrolled in American History, and they are currently studying the trans-Atlantic slave trade during the nation’s colonial period. As part of their summer reading, they read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, about the miscarriage of justice in a capital case that landed an innocent man on death row. In their English classes, the students have used the book as a prompt for their analytical writing based on a non-fiction text.

In preparation for the visit to Montgomery, students read the chapter “Sugar” by Khalil Gibran Muhammed from The 1619 Project about the economics of the slave trade. In addition, the students also read the chapters about the Middle Passage from the first person account, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself, published in 1789.

UL English and history teachers, as well as administrators, accompanied the students on the trip and in the small group discussions afterward. After returning to the Galloway campus, students will devote an additional school day to processing their responses to the experience, facilitated by Upper Learning Counselor Silvette Bullard. Students will also be writing letters to Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative to share their takeaways and their appreciation for the museum and the monument.

Scholarly writings, a first-person narrative, and individual responses to the visit all contributed to this profound lesson in experiential education for Galloway juniors.