Civil Rights Tour Part II

The tour through the south that follows the civil rights movement (more or less) has been great. However, the participants were as expected:white, wealthy, and well educated. Besides on other student from American University, I was the only person under 30 on this trip. The irony of this trip is overflowing; The fact that a group of elite whites are paying money to study the civil rights with Julian Bond is crazy to me. I ask myself, "Why do we think we have the right to meet these famous civil rights activist?" I understand that white people as a whole need to learn more about this problem, but it just strikes me as strange. One experience I had that made me feel embarrassed to be white was when our bus got stuck in a ditch. A group of older white women began to sing "We shall overcome" as a joke regarding our bus being stuck. It is extremely rude to compare our problem of overcoming our bus problems to the civil rights movement. These women were not seriously comparing the two problems but it still was offensive to me. I am a very pessimistic white person when it comes to the civil rights. I am ashamed that my ancestors oppressed a group of people by the color of their skin.