Civil Rights Tour laden with landmarks, loveliness

AnnListens,JaneIntroduces JimH — Ann listens while Jane Stoever introduces her, noting that Ann went to the Kansas City Art Institute for her baccalaureate, to Avila University for her registered nurse’s degree, and to KU for her master’s degree in science. The vice chair of PeaceWorks KC, Ann is a former president of the national Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and serves on the Board of Physicians for Social Responsibility.–Photo by Jim Hannah

Following Ann Suellentrop’s journey on a Civil Rights Tour, she gave a talk Nov. 12. She wrapped in travels in Japan and in Washington, DC, but most poignantly, she shared numerous photos from her southern US tour.

Here are some of those photos, plus a few pictures by Jim Hannah from Ann’s report at Cherith Brook Catholic Worker House in KC MO.

Ann reminded us that this year, on April 28, the famous Clayborn Temple, the headquarters for the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis, was burned by an arsonist. “We have a racist political history,” she said, and that history continues to unfold.

Emmett Till Ann RESIZED — Ann visited the Glendora, MS, center in Till’s honor. He was abducted and lynched at age 14 after being accused of offending a white woman.–Photo courtesy of Ann Suellentrop

“For our country to repair our racism, we have to learn the truth,” she added. Some of today’s racism is seen in mass incarceration of Blacks and other minority groups. Ann noted, “The US has 5% of the world’s population, but nearly 25% of its incarcerated, in jail or prison.”

Visiting Montgomery, Alabama, Ann took pictures at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the first monument to commemorate the over 4,000 Blacks who were lynched in the US between 1877 and 1950. Ann made it a point, at the end of her slide show, to say, “There will be another Civil Rights Tour next spring!”

An earlier story, to invite folks to the Nov. 12 talk, presented three photos. See https://peaceworkskc.org/raised-in-civil-rights-era-ann-talks-about-her-trips-11-12/.

Those of us in attendance Nov. 12 say, “Thanks, Ann! Keep traveling and telling us what inspires you!”

This monument to hope stands at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, AL. –Photo by Ann Suellentrop for her slide show; photo by Jim Hannah from the slide show.