A College of Wooster course in the Rhetoric of Black Civil Rights, taught by Communication Studies Professor Denise Bostdorff, drew students from across disciplines and auditors from the Wooster community who took part in a TREK to Alabama to engage with veterans from the Civil Rights Movement and put into context their study of the strategies and language used to inspire changes that made history. While inside churches where organizers rallied community support, on streets where volunteers marched for their rights, standing by memorials for martyrs of the movement, walking across Edmond Pettis Bridge—the site of “Bloody Sunday,” and in museums dedicated to communicating the impact of these events, the students made connections to what they were learning and began to apply their experiences to their own actions.
The Wooster group from the TREK stands outside Dexter Parsonage in Montgomery, including, in the back, Bob Rodda P’03, P’06, (community auditor, retired director of Lowry Center), Alaina Cline ’25, Greta Heiser ’25, Charlotte Elgie ’25, Luke Thomas ’25, James Carter ’26, Colin Stoner ’25, Carolyn Buxton (community auditor and retired dean of students), Denise Bostdorff (professor of communication studies), David Newberry-Yokley ’00 (chaperone and director of recruitment and diversity outreach at the College); middle row, Sam Caley ’23, Emma Place ’25, Beth Gornall ’25, Belle Champion ’24; front, Ali Moros Taylor ’26, Anailah Funchess ’23, Mady (Miller) Noble ’65 (community auditor), and Audrey Pantaz ’25.
“It was a wonderful opportunity to see firsthand the places that we studied and apply our knowledge about the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement. Listening to the stories of veterans personalized the movement and those who were involved. Their stories paralleled much of the hate-filled rhetoric and events that we see in America today. The trip motivated me to continue to fight for justice.”
—Alaina Cline ’25, a political science major also completing the activism and social change pathway
“I was in the 19th row from the front. Normally the music kept us going. Music always lifted us, but this day we were not convincing, not even to ourselves as we sang, ‘Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around...’ But when we got to the apex in the middle of that bridge, we could see rows and rows, and rows of Alabama state troopers in blue uniforms beyond across the bordering county.”
Lynda Blackmon Lowery used these words and sang this melody as she shared her memory of “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965, with a group of Wooster students from a course called Rhetoric of Black Civil Rights. At 14 years old, Lowery walked behind the late Congressman John Lewis and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, and was tear-gassed, dragged, hit, kicked off the ground, and beaten unconscious with a baseball bat by those state troopers.
“The people that are often highlighted from the movement are leaders or men, and most of the people we met on the trip were women. I appreciated seeing the insights of the average person who took part in the movement. I could see myself in that and sharing their experiences.”
—Anailah Funchess ’23, an anthropology major with a minor in Africana studies. Her I.S. focused on how African American history and culture is displayed in museums, looking specifically at museums that centered African American identities and experiences.
“The most important part of this trip for me is the fact that I plan on sharing it with my little brothers. Every time we talked to a speaker, they asked us to keep telling the story, and I plan on telling my little brothers. Being able to show them little snippets of what people went through is what I wish I had in school instead of glossing over it.”
—Belle Champion ’24, a psychology major who’s interested in the study of trauma and generational trauma, took home remnants from many of the museums including the Black Chronicle, postcards with images, and other items to help her tell the story.
Those in the class recognized the use of rhetorical techniques while listening to the experiences of veterans and visited museums that wanted to continue to make people see and understand the history and inspire future action.
“Students made connections between the course content and the rhetoric of the museums we visited. For example, at the Equal Justice Initiative Museum, students noted the use of the phrase ‘human trafficking’ to help guests understand the horrors of slavery by talking about it in contemporary terms. Likewise, visitors’ interactions with ghostly slaves in holding pens at the start of the museum paralleled visitors’ ability near the end of the museum to interact with animated Black prisoners in federal and state institutions today as a means of underscoring the connections between slavery and mass incarceration. Students also pointed to the EJI’s displays of various messages—such as slave sale circulars and excerpts of speeches from opponents of integration, for instance—and how their rhetoric dehumanized Black people in both overt and subtle ways.”
—Denise Bostdorff, professor of communication studies
“For every name, there is a story and there are people who love them, people that lost them, and it's almost more than you can even think about. It makes you think about your own children and if they were in that situation and it cuts right through you. The experience deepened my understanding of the courage of everyday people to step up and walk to work during the boycotts or send their children into police dogs and fire hoses in 1963. It gave me hope because of the resilience of the people we encountered down there who are working for change and their determination to continue working for change.”
—Mady Noble ’65, a history alumna who audited the class. She brought her perspective of Wooster during the time the movement took place to the students in the class. Now retired, she taught history at various levels and was excited to connect with Professor Bostdorff about the course.
“The way Lynda Blackmon Lowery talked about and repeated some of the more serious or more traumatizing things that happened, it was clear to me having experience with rhetoric that she had structured her talk for maximum emotional impact. One thing I still think about is when she talked about when she was in jail as a teenager, and they fed them black-eyed peas, three meals a day the whole time they were in there. That's such a small detail, but the way she mentioned that within the larger narrative really made it stick and make clear the kind of treatment that they were getting. It was really good use of rhetoric.”
—Sam Caley ’23, communication studies and theatre & dance majors
After the trip, many of the students in the class spoke of the convictions inspired in them to pass on what they learned and become part of the movement against civil rights struggles today. Finding this awareness that civil rights is an ongoing process is something Bostdorff intended to inspire through the class. “It's not just this great speaker and this great leader that’s going to come along and save us all and figure it all out,” she said. “I also hope that their experiences will help to encourage them and inspire them to become more involved themselves, and to pass that education on because once you learn something, you're able to share that with others.”
“She started at the same age that I did. She was putting her body on the line, which I haven't done. That’s part of her legacy, making sure that I didn't necessarily have to. Her parents supported her, and my parents supported me, so it’s a little bit of similarity, but obviously extremely different and super impactful. Talking to government officials is exhausting, and it helps me understand why I should keep going as an advocate.”
—Ali Moros Taylor ’26 is considering an anthropology major and interested in the activism and social change pathway. Here, Moros Taylor, who came out as non-binary at age 14, speaks of a special connection they felt to Lynda Blackmon Lowery, who spoke with the group about her experience as the youngest person to march in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery. Moros Taylor has spoken to parents of trans kids who want to better understand their kids through a queer youth organization and advocated for trans rights with local lawmakers. Their grandmother's cousin, Denise McNair, was one of four young girls who died during the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in September 1963.
“You don't forget these kinds of things. My job in the student activities office in Lowry was to build community and figure out ways you pull people together in serendipitous ways to create memories that will never go away. These students won't forget this trip, nor will they forget to vote, nor will their families or their friends, and all these other people on this trip. The focus that it gets when it goes back is going to ripple.”
—Bob Rodda, a parent of ’03 and ’06 Wooster grads and retired director of the Lowry Center at the College, took an interest in auditing the class and the trip through his connection with acclaimed musician and educator Reggie Harris who has performed on campus. Harris led the group in singing freedom songs like “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” “Welcome Table,” “Been Down into the South,” and “We Shall Not Be Moved” throughout the journey.
“Where I live in Cleveland, we still struggle with segregation. All around the nation, disparities in education, the legacy of redlining, of overpolicing, the war on drugs, poverty, mass incarceration, all of these issues are still here after the Civil Rights Movement.
“Through this experience, I’ve learned the importance of stories. Everywhere we drove, every field we saw, every farm or large swath of land was labored on by enslaved people and sharecroppers. Any of the trees we saw could have been the sites of lynchings.
“There are 1000s of stories in that soil, just by itself. Understanding that, being respectful of that history to look at things that we consider mundane, like the trees and sunflowers, the final takeaway for me is being respectful of what occurred out here and what still happens.
“What I’ve learned about the Civil Rights Movement is the importance of the everyday person. Change comes from the actual community getting up and saying, ‘No, we’re going to put us on the front line; we’re going to do this.’ I really like what happens when you have the wisdom and guidance of the elders, but you have the fire and passion of the youth as well.”
—James Carter ’26, a first-year student from Cleveland who is planning to major in Africana Studies and political science.
“The trip was also centered around singing African American spiritual protest songs; on the bus and at Civil Rights monuments the group would be led in song. Directly before spring break, we read a paper about the importance of freedom songs as a class. I did not know any of the songs while reading the article, and it was difficult to connect to the material, but by signing those songs, especially at emotionally important moments, I was able to fully understand the rhetorical power that freedom music held.”
—Audrey Pantaz ’25, French & Francophone studies and English majors
In Montgomery, the students walked down Dexter Avenue to Court Square, the site of a massive slave market before the Civil War. Gathering at the street corner, Harris led them in singing “Been Down into the South,” a spiritual reminiscent of those who came to the South to register people to vote and support the movement, about the South as a state of mind and racism as a nationwide issue.
Civil Rights Movement Sites
The map shows a selection of the sites from the movement that students visited throughout their TREK in Alabama, often talking with veterans of the movement from the area. Students also explored the Equal Justice Initiatives’ Legacy Museum, National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Lowndes County Interpretive Center, Maya Lin Civil Rights Memorial, Civil Rights Memorial Center at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, among other key places.
1. BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH was bombed in 1956, 1958, and 1962. Under the leadership of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, the church served as the headquarters of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, an organization that fought against segregation.
2. ZION CHAPEL METHODIST CHURCH was where veteran Jimmie Lee Jackson attended a civil rights meeting on Feb. 18, 1965. At the protest that followed, police shot Jackson as he defended his mother and grandfather from police attacks. His death sparked the call for the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights.
3. BROWN CHAPEL A.M.E. CHURCH was where the Selma march for voting rights began and where state troopers chased marchers back to on “Bloody Sunday.”
4. EDMUND PETTUS BRIDGE is the site of “Bloody Sunday,” beatings of civil rights marchers on March 7, 1965. The nationally televised attacks prompted public support for the voting rights campaign.
5. VIOLA LIUZZO MEMORIAL honors Liuzzo, a volunteer from Detroit, who was shot in her car by Ku Klux Klan members at this site after she supported marchers in the Selma to Montgomery march on March 25, 1965.
6. DEXTER AVENUE BAPTIST CHURCH is where Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor from 1954-60. The church played a major role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
7. DEXTER PARSONAGE was home to King and wife Coretta Scott King during his time at the church. The front porch was bombed in 1956, but his wife and daughter’s location in the home kept them safe, and King was away at a meeting.
8. THE ALABAMA STATE CAPITOL building, just a block from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, is where King spoke from the steps on March 25, 1965, after the completion of the Selma to Montgomery march and months prior to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
9. ROSA PARKS MUSEUM is located near where Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a public bus on Dec. 1, 1955. Civil Rights leaders like King used Park’s arrest to help inspire support for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
10. COURT SQUARE, where Parks first boarded the bus, was the site of Montgomery’s slave market before the Civil War.
11. 16TH STREET BAPTIST CHURCH served as headquarters for civil rights mass meetings and rallies and became the departure place of the Children’s Crusade in May 1963, when children aged 8 to 18 marched to downtown Birmingham to fight segregation and were met with fire hoses and police dogs. A bomb explosion in the basement of the church on Sept. 15, 1963, killed four young girls as they prepared to participate in the adult service that Sunday morning.
Writing and production by Caitlin Paynich Stanowick, editorial director; photos by Matt Dilyard, director of photography; and graphic by Ariel Esser, designer, with special thanks to Dan Stanowick for audio and video direction. The College of Wooster is grateful to the Living Legacy Project for their support of this project, visit livinglegacypilgrimage.org to learn more about its programs and resources. Also see reggieharrismusic.com. The original version of this story appeared in the summer 2023 Wooster magazine.
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