By: Benedito Catumbela
This week was one of the most memorable of the program because it made me feel as if I was living the same situation of the negro people who fought for this great nation and realized that America is not that great nation because of the people it has now, but because of the people who died fighting against segregation for decades in America, the same issues that Africa lived, or is living currently. The site visit to Alabama, Montgomery to see the Civil Rights Memorial, the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Legacy Museum. At these places I learned what civic engagement means, for I now understand to what extend civic engagement means to me and to others around the world, it is to give your life in the benefit of others who are oppressed by the political laws established by the political power in the country to render the population vulnerable and voiceless. The other issue in the site visit that I learned was about the injustice between the white and black people, though the black American people had the value to pursue the right to each and every person, the white Americans were incarcerating the people who were raising voices to the injustice, hundreds of a thousand children, women and men lost their lives and some are incarcerated, that’s why the U.S. has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. From an African point of view, what I am going to apply back home is to create a certain environment to give privilege and honor to those who fought for the country and whose names are burnt into the fire.
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