The second day of our journey brought us to the capital of the state of Alabama, Montgomery. This is the city where a woman named Rosa Parks stood up for what she believed in by sitting down. The Rosa Parks museum we went to was built right next to the site where Mrs. Parks rocked the world and brought me to an eerie place I had been to once before. In Montreal I went to a holocaust museum and the cold hard truth in a simple and effective manner was simlar to what this museum was like for me. The inside was adorned with documents and images. Some shocking, some just of the faces of people who got sick and tired of doing what people said they had to do for so long. This place left me with the same eerie effect the museum in Montreal had. One that left me wondering what drives humans to refuse to see each other as equals on our respective journeys through existance.
Civil Rights is still an issue today. Although we have legal stipulations against segregation and other such practices, prejudice, intolerance, and racism are still prevalent in 2010. In the past three years, the number of hate groups in the United States has increased by 35%. It is hard to believe that people in the world still judge people based on the colors of their skin, how they worship, and whom they choose to love. As humans, we have an obligation to defend those who are oppressed. Rosa Parks was able to do it. We need to find ways in our lives to take a stand, through education and advocacy. We can change the world in hundreds of small ways, and we don't even have to stand up.
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