By Hannah Mask
While many students may have spent their Martin Luther King Jr. day
sleeping in and relaxing, a group of UA students participating in the
Alternative Break Program traveled to Greensboro to volunteer with
community service projects and tour the Safe House Black History
Museum—where King was hidden from the Ku Klux Klan.
Mark McClemore, student coordinator for the Alternative Break Program,
said the group arrived in Greensboro the morning of Jan. 15 and stayed
until Monday.
On Saturday and Sunday, the group split up into several factions to
work with community service organizations like Habitat for Humanity,
Pie Lab and Bike Lab. Pie Lab, McClemore said, is a new initiative
started in Hale County that serves pie and coffee in the front of the
building while simultaneously providing a space for residents to meet
to discuss community issues in the back.
Charlotte Brown, a sophomore majoring in marketing who is also the
coordinator for Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week, went on the trip
and said she worked in both the Pie Lab and Bike Lab. The Bike Lab, she
said, is an organization that takes in old bikes to repair them and
provide them to people who have no other mode of transportation.
“We were clearing that [building] space out and basically getting it
ready for [the owners] to renovate,” Brown said. “At the Pie Lab, we
served pie, cleaned up the space and did odd jobs.”
Other factions of the group worked with Habitat for Humanity in weeding
out a parking lot and doing work for a tenant who lived in a run-down
house.
McClemore and Brown both said visiting the Safe House Museum on Monday was a highlight of their trip.
“We pulled up to a little yellow house and met one of the founders of
the Civil Rights Museum,” McClemore said. “She [Theresa Burroughs] was
very active in the civil rights movement. She knew Dr. King personally.”
McClemore said Burroughs gave recounts of non-violent protests in which
she had participated. She also told McClemore that the night King
stayed in the Safe House Museum, the black community gathered to stake
out the house to protect him from the KKK.
“They made a vow to each other that they weren’t going to let Dr. King die that night in Greensboro,” McClemore said.
To have been in such a historic place on the day the nation commemorates King’s life, Brown said, was “surreal.”
“I was standing in the exact location where Martin Luther King was
hiding from the KKK,” she said. “To hear the story from someone who was
actually there gives more meaning and depth to the holiday as opposed
to [it being] just a day off of school.”
Wahnee Sherman, the director of the community service center who also
went to Greensboro, said she thought the trip to Greensboro held
importance to the students and faculty who went.
“We were able to do some meaningful service and also introduce students
to other ways in which they can be involved in the Greensboro
community,” she said. “We want them to continue to do service.”
Sherman also said the Safe House Museum was a significant part of the trip.
“[Burroughs is] a piece of living history, and they were able to
interact with her, so I think that was particularly meaningful for the
students.”
