Birmingham Field Trip

What I knew prior to the trip to the civil rights was the situation about protesters being sprayed with firehoses, and attacked by police dogs, also I knew the 16th street bombing happened but nothing more than that fact, I knew that there was a group of pro integration supporters rode a bus across south-eastern america in order to protest civil rights. The things that going to the civil rights institute brought to light for me was that the people in the downtown Birmingham protests were mostly teenagers, and that they had a goal of getting themselves arrested. One of the focal points of the Civil rights institutes exhibits was the church bombing exhibits, they put together the whole story and showed real evidence that it actually happened, really solidifying the reality of what happened and how those 4 little girls died that day. I didn't know that the freedom riders met so much diversity and aggression but still rode on, and even had a sort of military protection part of the way. I didn't know the extent of the systematic oppression that people of color faced in that there were people in positions of great power and authority that were openly racist, and that the acts of racism back then were hardly hidden and so widespread. The thing that stood out to me the most about our trip to Birmingham was the timeline that the museum layer out portraying the span of 50 years that authorities spent relentlessly searching for the people responsible for the bombing, the dedication of the FBI to investigate the case for that long really showed how some people were truly bought in to this movement.