Students join a few original Freedom Riders on the ride of their lives
St. Petersburg Times – May 29
Sometimes it’s a song. Or an unexpected question. But no matter how often he talks about those fateful days in 1961 when he joined the first wave of Freedom Riders — a biracial group of 436 activists who rode buses into the South to challenge segregation — Charles Person still has moments when the emotion nearly overwhelms him. Relaxing in front of the King Center memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, Person compared it to the post-traumatic stress some soldiers experience after war. . . . Person had joined University of South Florida St. Petersburg professor Ray Arsenault and 40 handpicked college students partway through a 10-day journey re-creating the Freedom Riders’ original bus trip through the South. . . . Stephanie Burton, 21, a journalism major at historically black Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, can rattle off a list of lessons learned with earnest enthusiasm, from the power of nonviolence to better understanding of her grandmother’s challenges. Still, Burton almost surprised herself recalling a subtler moment. She and fellow Alabama native Marshall Houston were talking about their experiences on the trip, crying and hugging their way through the stories. Houston, 22, a seventh-generation white Alabaman now studying at the University of Alabama, often jokes that he must have slave owners in his family history somewhere. But he’s earnest about the lessons that come from moments like the one he shared with Burton, seeing families and culture through each other’s eyes. And then she realized: “I’ve never felt that before about — and I’m ashamed to say this — I never felt that way about somebody outside of my own race,” Burton said.
College Student from Forest Finds Calling After AL Tornado
WSET Lynchburg, Va., — May 29
A University of Alabama student returned home Friday night after spending the last three weeks cleaning up the toppled town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. While the EF-5 tornado rocked the college town, freshman Emily Broman crouched in a basement dormitory waiting for the storm to subside.”We had no way of knowing that this was going to be an F-5 tornado,” she said. . . . For the last three weeks Emily Broman and 24 other members of the University of Alabama Honor’s College Fellows Program were back in Tuscaloosa where they removed debris, worked at donation centers and coordinated with other volunteers. “All 25 of us were freshmen and so essentially, for us, this was more of a beginning and exposure of what we need to be doing for the rest of our four years,” Broman said. “There are no words for what we’ve experienced, what we’ve gone through and the sense of obligation that now comes with being a member of the Tuscaloosa community.” Broman looks forward to returning to Tuscaloosa this fall for her Sophomore year.
Tuscaloosa federal courthouse shows Alabama history
Birmingham News – May 30
U.S. District Judge Scott Coogler paused during a tour of the new $47.8 million federal building in Tuscaloosa last week to point to a wall with a large, boarded-up hole that will become a steel door. “This just has one purpose in life,” Coogler said. “This is to allow the artwork to come into the building because the artwork is so big that you can’t get it in the building any other way.” Sixteen murals, each 14 feet tall and 9 feet wide, have been commissioned to represent the history of Tuscaloosa, north Alabama and the nation.. . . . The committee chose Caleb O’Connor, a Hawaii-born artist who was living in Chicago. “You look at the faces of the people he paints and you know what they’re feeling or thinking,” Coogler said. O’Connor researches his subjects in detail. He visited sites such as Nucor Steel, Mercedes Benz and Moundville for his murals. One mural depicts the librarian at the University of Alabama trying to persuade a Union officer to allow him to get books out of the library before it is burned in the Civil War. (O’Connor is artist in residence at UA.)
Bernie: Carp’s numbers look wrong but he’s doing a lot right (sports column by Bernie Miklasz)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch – May 28
St. Louisan Allyson Angle a graduate student in journalism at the University of Alabama, did an exceptional job of assisting Sports Illustrated in the magazine’s recent cover story, written by Lars Anderson, detailing the devastation of the tornado that swept through Tuscaloosa. Angle, a graduate of Lafayette HS, was on the Alabama swim team for four years.
UA student caught up in Ala., Mo. tornadoes
Tuscaloosa News – May 30
Like most University of Alabama students, April Fuller was shaken up after the events of April 27. She vividly remembers the yellow sky and the awful sound of the EF-4 tornado as it plowed through Forest Lake, three blocks from her home on Meador Drive, decimating homes and forever changing the landscape of the town she has called home for two years. “I honestly thought that was a once in a lifetime thing,” she said. It wasn’t. On April 29, Fuller began a long drive home to Joplin, Mo., where an EF-5 tornado leveled much of the town May 22. Fuller survived, but, for the second time in three weeks, a monstrous storm passed within three blocks of her.
Summer Camp counsel
Tuscaloosa News – May 29
As the school year is quickly winding to a close, Melody Kelley is joining many other parents in town in the search to find the perfect camp or activity for their kids to participate in for the summer. Kelley, a graduate student majoring in chemistry at the University of Alabama, said she has specific goals in mind for where she plans to send her 4-year-old daughter, Kiara. “I’m considering a lot of different options,” she said, “I’m looking for options that are going to prepare her for kindergarten.” Cori Perdue, the coordinator for the Graduate Parent Support program at the University of Alabama, said she saw many student parents who did not have good connections to summer activities in town. Last year, she was giving out a lot of information to parents who were looking for programs for their children, she said. So this year, she has coordinated a Summer Camp Expo, slated for Friday to give parents a chance to see firsthand different activities and camps their children can participate in.