Seventh graders learned about history from someone who was thrust into the civil rights movement at their very age. Seventh graders visited three destinations in downtown Jackson as a 
part of their study of Mississippi history. The full day included the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, plus a tour of the Mississippi Capitol on the date of the state of the state address! Seventh grade history teacher Sydney Pinnen said the trip was a culmination of their focus on the history of our state, and the launch of their spring semester studies of civics and government.
A highlight of the day was a personal story shared with seventh graders by museum guide Hezekiah Watkins. Seventh grader Miley Williams said Watkins told of getting in trouble when he and friends ran to the Greyhound Bus station on Lamar Street in downtown Jackson to see the Freedom Riders. He was either pushed or stumbled through the door and was then connected with the situation. “It made me feel hurt because that could have been me back then,” she said.
At age 13, Watkins was mistaken for a Freedom Rider and taken to Parchman with the riders. He became the youngest Freedom Rider and a man arrested over 100 times in the course of his activism in Mississippi regarding civil rights. Click here to read the story online.
Miley said the field trip was a really good learning experience that helped her gain a better understanding of what students were learning in the classroom. “It showed how the years have changed and how much we have improved,” she said. “How we treat people can affect them now and in the future.”
