By: Joseph Ulloa

The Student Leadership Center at UTSA provides students with the opportunity to be submerged into the Civil Rights Movement and the history of where our country came from; a society who believed in segregation. The Civil Rights and Social Justice Experience will stay with me for as long as I live and will help me make decisions in the future as a leader – no matter the institution I am a part of. The historic sites I visited were the Little Rock High School in Little Rock, Arkansas; the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama; and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Little Rock High School was the most interesting site, knowing that I walked in the same foot steps of the Little Rock Nine was an honor. Hearing about their experience was unreal; to know that these students were being harassed while attempting to receive an education is upsetting.

Another site that was interesting was the National Civil Rights Museum, which is the same hotel that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot at. The site is no longer a hotel, but is now a museum. It was amazing to know that his last speech had an impactful ending at the church near by. Listening to his last speech on YouTube in the church he spoke in, was emotional for all of us. His speech “I’ve been to the mountain top” had an ending that sounded as if he knew he was going to die. He will be remembered throughout history as a hero for Civil Rights but in my opinion, he was a sacrifice for the equality we have for minorities today.

I will never understand, firsthand, what they went through, but I do know that I will do my best to prevent this experience from happening again.  As an advocate for equality, I will take this experience to educate my peers that there is still inequality today. We all have the power to make a change through voting or to be part of a movement/organization whose mission is to help minorities succeed and reach their full potential. I urge other students at UTSA to take advantage of this trip and apply at the Student Leadership Center on campus.

 

You can visit the Student Leadership Center’s website here: http://www.utsa.edu/slc/