ReNeaSha Ford - Day 20

We started out our day with a wake up call at 8 o’clock this morning. We sleepily walked out of our lovely cabins, ate breakfast on the bus and were on our way to Ruleville, MS where we met with Charles McLaurin who is a veteran of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement at the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Site. Then we headed off to an amazing soul food lunch at a local restaurant. Around 1 o’clock in the afternoon we drove to Drew, MS. We were suppose to go and see one of the Rosenwald schools and meet with Rev. Gresham, but we were told that the Rev. had gotten to hot waiting on us to arrive so he decided to head on back home. Never heard that one before. Oh well. So after driving around for about an half of an hour looking for a school that we didn’t even get to see we set out for Mound Bayou, MS. Mound Bayou is a city in the Mississippi Delta that was started by African-Americans, it is also the largest African-American city in the south with about 2100 people. We got a chance to talk with the Mayor of the city Mayor Johnson, who gave us a history and facts about the city that we would have never known. The final stop on our agenda was Cleveland, MS which is about 15 or 20 minutes away from Mound Bayou. This was probably the best part of the day for many of us because we got a chance to meet with the Cleveland Youth Council, who are teens and young adults that are doing social justice work and working to make their community a better place. We all thought that it was good to meet with people our age that are out there trying to bring about some type of change in their communities and circles of influence as us. Feeling inspired by the teens and young adults, we said our good-byes and headed for Little Rock, AR around 5 o’clock that evening and after a 3 hr. drive we finally arrived. We decided to have dinner at IHOP and after filling up our bellies with some yummy food and having a chance to relax with each other we headed to our hotel. Our day was kind of jammed packed so our curfew was set for 11 o’clock on the dot. We all said our good-nights and see you laters and went to our rooms, climbed into the beds and waited to see what the next day had to bring.