From Bus Burning to Healing: Lessons from the Civil Rights Movement

What can public health learn from the Freedom Riders? In this deeply moving conversation, Dr. Cougar Hall is joined by Georgia Calhoun, Trudy Munford, and Dr. Anthony Bates to discuss the intersection of faith, forgiveness, and social justice. From the burning buses of 1961 to the heritage festivals of today, this episode shows how communities endure trauma, create spaces for healing, and build legacies of peace. 

Recorded, Edited & Produced by Christy Gonzalez, Harper Xinyu Zhang, Kailey Hopkins, and Tanya Gale

Transcript

 [00:00:00] Cougar: Welcome to Y Health, a podcast brought to you by the BYU Public Health Department. I'm Dr. Cougar Hall, a professor here at Brigham Young University, where you are a student, parent, or BYU fan. This podcast will help you navigate the world of public health. Our podcast strives to help individuals receive accurate information regarding public health, so whether it's global or local, we will discuss how it pertains to you. 

[00:00:36] Cougar: Just kick back and relax as we talk about Y Health. We have a very special Y Health podcast this morning. I have three special guests. First, I have Georgia Calhoun from the Freedom Writers Park Board. And Trudy Louise Munford from Freedom Riders Training Academy and Dr. Anthony Bates [00:01:00] from the Sorenson Center here on the campus of Brigham and University, and he's the managing director. 

[00:01:06] Cougar: And I don't think we've ever had a podcast that's this special to me. I have been anticipating this one for literally months. And appreciate you all for being here, traveling Trudy and Georgia. You traveled some length, so I think the best way to start is maybe go one at a time to some extent. So Trudy, can I begin with you? 

[00:01:27] Cougar: Will you tell us who you are and give us a little background and what has brought you to Provo, Utah of all places? 

[00:01:34] Trudy: What brought me to Provo, Utah, one of the most beautiful places that I've seen in the world was Freedom Writers Training Academy. I have been on this board for 13 years. Wow. I have learned, I was a retiree from the state of New York and I [00:02:00] came home, actually, I migrated back to Alabama. 

[00:02:05] Cougar: Love it. 

[00:02:05] Trudy: After doing the great migration to New York for a chance to work and to make a, a reasonable, I'm not gonna even say now, salary. So again, after 42 years, relocated home to Anniston and was asked to join the board of the Freedom Writers, then Park and Monument. Now the Freedom Writers Academy Training Academy is under the Freedom Writers Board. 

[00:02:41] Cougar: Okay, thank you. 

[00:02:42] Trudy: So I'm on both boards and that's what brought me. To Salt Lake City after traveling so many, many places. I have never seen mountains like this, nowhere. So this has been a [00:03:00] blessing. Oh, thank you. I'm here because of the Training Writers Training Academy. 

[00:03:05] Cougar: Well, and if I can just interject for the benefit of our listeners for the past couple of years, administrators here in the College of Life Sciences and faculty have traveled back to Alabama for a civil rights tour, is the way we've been terming it here on campus, and that really has fostered this relationship with Freedom Writers and Brigham Young University, and it's truly been a learning experience. 

[00:03:32] Cougar: I have not participated in the tour yet, but if I can go to plugin for whoever's listening that I'd like to go, my two closest colleagues have each gone back and had their life changed. So this is really cool. Some of our listeners won't know anything about Freedom Writers, so maybe if you want to take us back to Mother's Day, 1961 and kinda give us a context for where you were at in the events of that day, that might be helpful.[00:04:00] 

[00:04:00] Trudy: Certainly April, I forget the day, 1961, I was in the 11th grade in high school and that was on Sunday and it was Mother's Day and we were in church. Now in the black church, we go to church on Sunday, and I always tell this sometime we may not leave until Thursday. 

[00:04:27] Cougar: I love it 

[00:04:27] Trudy: because it is the nucleus of our community. 

[00:04:31] Trudy: Everything happens at the church, and we were there throughout the week. We had BTU, we would church all day on Sunday. All day, sometime on Monday after school. So on this particular day, we were in church and it was Mother's Day and I was sitting there looking at all our friends and members of the church, and especially the children. 

[00:04:58] Trudy: And so there I am, and I'll [00:05:00] never forget it, someone came in and said, the bus burning, they just bombed the, the bus said what? The Freedom Riders Bus. Now we knew about this. Remember I went to a segregated school, so we knew what the Freedom Riders and who they were, not personally, but who they were. And we knew they were out there trying out this new law that said you could ride the bus and sit any place you wanted to. 

[00:05:29] Trudy: The law said you could do this. We knew the, that the tour started in Washington. We knew that it was going to be black and white people on this bus. Our teachers already taught us that, so we knew that. Somehow we didn't know that it may come through Anniston. Mm-hmm. Yet we knew that it was coming to Birmingham. 

[00:05:51] Trudy: But if you don't know geography, you know, you don't know exactly where they're gonna come to Anniston. So we are sitting there, say burning the, [00:06:00] burning the bus, stay in the church. So the church, as I told you, was everything to us. We didn't have very much in our community, but we had the church. 

[00:06:08] Cougar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:09] Trudy: We had our dances in the church. 

[00:06:11] Trudy: I love the church. It gave me my very basics of everything. But anyway, we were there and the minister said, don't leave the church. And we said, why not? Now girls, during this time, we were not allowed to really be out and walking and without your brothers or what? They could go anywhere. The boys could go everywhere. 

[00:06:35] Trudy: Yeah. I couldn't, you know, it was the backyard or the neighbor next door, et. So here we were. So some of the old sisters in the church said, well, let's sing. It's something about singing when you are afraid. 

[00:06:52] Cougar: Yeah. 

[00:06:53] Trudy: I don't know. It makes you courageous. So they start singing our old [00:07:00] negro spirituals and whoa, all of a sudden we weren't afraid. 

[00:07:07] Trudy: Music. It does something to you that is the right kind of music. And thereby we were there. Well, we had food because in our church, like I told you, we have everything. So I love it. We could go downstairs and fried chicken, potato pie, biscuits. So we, we were okay. We could have stayed in there maybe for about three months, but it was just for a day. 

[00:07:35] Trudy: So there we were. My mother was there. All of the old sisters and our old deacons and they were praying and they said things are going to be all right. And you know what? We always believed that. They said, let's pray. And they taught us how to pray. So they back call. One of the kids said, well come up and pray. 

[00:07:59] Trudy: And many of 'em would [00:08:00] just pray about what was going on. But we were there for quite a while. And then when we got the word that we could leave, we could go home, which was somewhere around four or five 30 in the evening. We were home, closed the door, pulled the shades down, and that evening the Ku Klux Klan came through the, the community they were shooting. 

[00:08:26] Trudy: And of course many of 'em was just shooting. I don't think they really knew how to use guns 'cause they were shooting at, maybe it was about a fear factor. 

[00:08:33] Cougar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:34] Trudy: It didn't happen 'cause we were okay. We didn't go out on 2 0 2, that was the highway where the bus was burned. We didn't get any more information. 

[00:08:42] Trudy: 'cause many of us didn't even have a television, radio or any of those things. But we knew everything was going to be okay. But on that day, it was our church that nurtured us and made us unafraid. 

[00:08:59] Cougar: So amazing. And [00:09:00] I really want to talk about faith in particular, forgiveness in a moment. Tell me, the bus pulled into Aniston and there was a bus stop there. 

[00:09:09] Cougar: And my understanding is the mob, if I can just use that term, the mob, were hassling both the whites and the blacks on the bus. And these are protestors who are saying, Hey, we need to follow the law. And civil rights activists, I think is, is the term that I'll use. But the mob, my understanding is the mob slashed the tires on the bus, and so the bus didn't make it too far. 

[00:09:31] Cougar: Out of town, so to speak. And then as the mob is chasing the bus and tracking it down, as it pulls off to the side of the road, they break windows, they quote unquote fire bomb the bus and turn it into this inferno. Just, just disastrous. Um, but the Freedom Riders had been active before that. These tours, as you said, this one was going from DC to Birmingham, but my understanding is that they had been pretty active in, in, you know, [00:10:00] fighting for their civil rights for non segregated bus terminals and trains. 

[00:10:05] Cougar: And so this had really gone on for some time. When did you finally hear about what had actually happened about the, was it later that night? 

[00:10:13] Trudy: To be very honest, it seems we didn't get any word. 'cause once we were home, we knew the bus had been burned. Now I learned more about it through the history book. Or the a actually the Anderson star. 

[00:10:29] Trudy: Now that newspaper in Anderson, this is very interesting. They really ran a very truthful about what happened out on what we call 2 0 2, which is where our park is going to be. It started at the bus station, and of course the bus was able to get out to what we call 2 0 2 2 0 2 on the way to, um, Birmingham. 

[00:10:51] Trudy: Okay. Which wasn't too far from the station, but we learned about what actually happened through the newspaper. 

[00:10:58] Cougar: Through the newspaper. 

[00:10:59] Trudy: Remember, [00:11:00] we had none of these media. We didn't, we didn't have a computer. We didn't tell over the cell phone. Uh, we didn't have any of that. 

[00:11:07] Cougar: Yeah. So 

[00:11:07] Trudy: we actually learned about it when it was written, and our newspaper at that time was very courageous to actually write the truth. 

[00:11:18] Trudy: So Mr. Brandy Ays, who was the editor and the owner. Of the Anniston Star. I have to give kudos because he did write the truth about what happened in Anniston. Now, I don't know what the fallout was for him, but that's where we learned to really learn what actually happened. 

[00:11:35] Cougar: I love it. The 

[00:11:35] Trudy: Anniston star 

[00:11:37] Cougar: speaks to the courage that's right of blacks and whites throughout the Civil Rights movement in the United States, doesn't it? 

[00:11:45] Cougar: Now, I'm gonna turn to Georgia in just a moment, but Trudy, that event changed your life. Oh, and you have been an advocate for civil rights. This is 64 years ago. [00:12:00] So your adult life has been dedicated to fighting for equality and for justice. In just a brief overview, what has that looked like for you? I'm asking you to summarize almost 65 years in 90 seconds. 

[00:12:14] Cougar: I know that that's unfair that, but. That spirit. Okay. That entered into you at that moment. Okay. Tell us about that. 

[00:12:21] Trudy: Okay. Now let me just give you some dates, please. I'm gonna go back a little bit. I'm gonna do it quickly. Okay. 1954 Brown versus the Board of Education. I was 10 years old. 

[00:12:32] Cougar: 10 years old. 

[00:12:33] Cougar: Little Rock nine. 

[00:12:34] Trudy: Exactly. And I'm thinking, you know, well in the next couple of weeks or the next month or two, I'll be in a integrated classroom. It didn't happen until 1973 that they integrated the schools in Anniston, Alabama. Alright. That's one thing. Wow. 1961, the bus burning, 1963 was a pivotal year in my life. 

[00:12:59] Trudy: Me [00:13:00] Evers was gunned down and assassinated in the driveway of his home with his children and wife in, in the house. He was A-N-A-C-P out trying to get people to register to vote in Jackson, Mississippi. Mm-hmm. 

[00:13:14] Trudy: Now, 

[00:13:14] Trudy: that was a knockout. 

[00:13:16] Cougar: Yeah. 

[00:13:16] Trudy: Okay. 19 6 63 is a pivotal year. I was in college. I was a sophomore at Florida a M University. 

[00:13:25] Trudy: I went to the March on Washington, August 28th, 1963, riding the Greyhound bus, sitting in the front of the bus because of the bus riders and the Freedom Riders in 1961, 

[00:13:39] Cougar: right? 

[00:13:40] Trudy: So here I was in the front of the bus heading to Washington, DC from Anniston, Alabama, and off I went. I went to the march now. One thing I kind of forgot is I tell everyone I forgot to get a two-way ticket. 

[00:13:57] Trudy: I got the one way that was the best I could do at that time. [00:14:00] But I had relatives in Washington, so I figured somebody will send me back to Florida. 

[00:14:06] Cougar: I love it. Don't get tired of you. They'll send you home. Exactly. 

[00:14:09] Trudy: So anyway, I went there for the march and it was a hot day. It was fun. It was like a big picnic for me. 

[00:14:16] Trudy: And then I returned to Tallahassee, Florida on September 13th. They bombed the church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing three little children that were in Sunday school. I said, oh no. Then my mom called me from Anniston and said, Trudy, our minister, Reverend Reynolds was just beating up severely for trying to check a book out of the library. 

[00:14:49] Trudy: And it was like, no. So maybe about a week or so later, John Lewis. Came to Florida a and m, they were going to different [00:15:00] historical black colleges. Getting young people like these young people here at BYU involved in the Civil rights movement. I had no intention, but all these things had occurred, especially in 1963. 

[00:15:14] Trudy: And so they asked me to come to a training and I went and they trained us how to protest peacefully. Yeah. And, well, I didn't quite understand it then, but they said, okay, you're not supposed to do that. Seemed like everything they said, don't do, don't do, don't do, don't do on the other side. They never said do, but they said, don't do this. 

[00:15:40] Trudy: Don't do, don't do. So anyway, I got involved. Now I wanna say this about that we had, honestly more white women from Florida State University. Training, and this was a woman thing, almost. Almost. We were the majority. 

[00:15:58] Cougar: Yeah. 

[00:15:59] Trudy: [00:16:00] So after a couple of weeks of training, they said, well, now you're ready so you can go out now and protest peacefully. 

[00:16:08] Trudy: And we did. We went, I said to the theater and we went on the property. We get up to the window and the lady says, she drops the curtain and she says, blacks are not allowed. No, she said, colored are not allowed. The interesting thing is I didn't even have the fee for the theater. So she could have said, well, okay, I get put your money up here and go in, and I would've had to turn around and go back to campus. 

[00:16:39] Trudy: But again, the Tallahassee. It's the capital of of Florida. You had the county sheriffs there, you had the city police officers there. You had the state troopers there that evening. And so [00:17:00] they would read some long declaration or proclamation, I don't know what they were reading, and said, okay, you are under arrest. 

[00:17:08] Trudy: So I hopped up. I wasn't beaten, I never was pulled down the street, nothing. I hopped up in the paddy wagon and off we went 

[00:17:18] Cougar: arrested. 

[00:17:18] Trudy: Exactly. And so off we went to something they said was a county camp that was way out. And I always said it was very scary because you heard the dogs barking. 

[00:17:29] Cougar: Yeah. 

[00:17:30] Trudy: And you didn't know where you're going. 

[00:17:32] Trudy: Can you imagine? And I always think about that guy who wrote this Russian auth author. I read his book 40 years ago, Stefan Sli. The Archipelago. Yeah. Every day 

[00:17:44] Cougar: I got halfway through it. It was so long for me. Ooh, what, what was interesting? You're more of a scholar than I am. 

[00:17:49] Trudy: Well, that was 40 years ago. Yeah. 

[00:17:51] Trudy: But anyway, that's what I remember it. Yeah, because I had read that book and I'm saying, oh my goodness, the dogs are barking. It looked like you could hear the wind blowing [00:18:00] and, and, but you didn't know where you were going. But off we went and we went to a place called the county camp. We didn't do anything but stay overnight. 

[00:18:08] Trudy: Next morning we returned to court and the judge was sitting there, the room was full of protestors. There weren't, you didn't have room for anywhere else. And he said, I'm gonna let you go. Not gonna charge you, but you better go and be good little girls. Now don't come back. I said, okay. The next day. We were back at it again. 

[00:18:38] Trudy: I told you, protest, send your blood. Yeah. It's in your blood. It grabs you. Yeah. And it holds you. And it keeps you. But anyway, we were back Now this time when we went back, he wasn't nice like that anymore. Hmm. So he charged us with contempt of court and he said, we gonna teach it this time. You gotta learn a lesson now [00:19:00] you all are being really hard headed. 

[00:19:03] Trudy: And so we stayed there. He sentenced us for three months. However, he let us go back to campus to, you know, to get our toiletries and slippers and you know, anything else we wanted to close. And then several days later we went in to the, um, I don't even know whether it was a prison, a penitentiary or what it was, but it was something. 

[00:19:28] Trudy: And guess what? That was segregated. 

[00:19:31] Cougar: Mm. 

[00:19:32] Trudy: So we were on somewhere in there and the white students from FSU were, who were women were someplace in, in the penitentiary. Wow. So we were there for maybe about four weeks or six weeks maybe. Wow. 

[00:19:46] Cougar: Mm-hmm. Now, now listeners know why I've been so excited to talk to you, Trudy. 

[00:19:52] Cougar: Oh, thank 

[00:19:53] Cougar: you. 

[00:19:53] Cougar: I am in the presence of greatness. And I know you don't refer to yourself as greatness, [00:20:00] but just the courage to peacefully protest to say there's, and I think John Lewis had, there's a great quote from him about when you see something wrong, you have to do something about it. And I don't care what the situation is, and there's a way to do it. 

[00:20:15] Cougar: And I think you did it exactly that way. And look how far we've come. And I think there was a, from the lens that I've grown up with, I grew up on the West coast. You know, you just mentioned 1973 was when schools were finally segregated. Well, I was born in 1972, Trudy. So I grew up thinking, ah, you know, the civil rights movement was, was something that happened. 

[00:20:40] Cougar: It's, it's done. It happened, and the work's been done. And then there have been events in my life, Rodney King, and the riots in Los Angeles comes to mind. And then certainly if we go back to the summer of 2020 when it felt like everything came unglued, there have been multiple times in my life [00:21:00] where you have this great awakening, this realization of the work's not done. 

[00:21:06] Cougar: And so the civil rights movement, and we can put years or brackets around that phrase. But we're always trying to give a voice to the voiceless. We're always pushing for fairness and equality for all. And I think so it's just so inspiring. The work is not done. I'm gonna turn to Georgia for a moment, 'cause we're boring the heck out of her at this moment. 

[00:21:31] Cougar: And then I'm gonna come back and I want to talk to you about how do you endure the things you've endured and continue to be such an advocate for freedom and equality. Not have that sour, you not have the frustration, the heartache really, really poisonous. 'cause there's, there's a real challenge there. 

[00:21:51] Cougar: And that's really the, the public health angle that I want to take with that. Is that okay? That's fine. But Georgia, can I wake you up for a second here? Yes, sister. How are you doing? [00:22:00] 

[00:22:00] Georgia: When I look at the mountains, I see God, the hand works of God. And I was just sitting here. Thanking God for his beautiful mountains and his hand work and what he's done and how faith and religion has just brought us through this. 

[00:22:16] Georgia: See, before there was a board, before there was, uh, schools thought of it was Georgia Calhoun. Now, the reason I say that is because the Freedom Riders came to Anniston. They burned the bus three years, nothing was said about it. 

[00:22:39] Cougar: Wow. 

[00:22:42] Georgia: This little lady, Georgia Calhoun, went to the city council and I asked him, would I be able to put a marker? 

[00:22:52] Georgia: Can us do something to recognize that the Freedom Riders had been to Anderson and they told me it's ugly history. [00:23:00] We don't want it, and you forget it. Wow. But I didn't forget it. I called Dr. Geralds who was over the N-A-A-C-P. That's the National Association for Colored People that it still exists. I called a pastor who was met Reverend Parker, and the three of us met at a Holiday Inn in Oxford, Alabama. 

[00:23:30] Georgia: I told them what my mission was and I need help because I've been told by the city council. Still forget it. Mm-hmm. And my husband even said, well you need to just go on and be quiet 'cause they may do. So I said, oh no, I'm not the one that you can quiet down. So we talked and I said, the mark is gonna cost a lot of money and we put it on 2 0 2. 

[00:23:58] Georgia: We gotta have [00:24:00] permission to do that. So I talked to the county commissioner, who was Mr. Henderson at that time. He was on on that district. And then I talked to the highway department. Anyway, we got permission to put a marker there and that's what I told my committee. I said, we don't have any money to buy the marker. 

[00:24:27] Georgia: So Dr. Gerald said, I'm an Omega and that's one of the fraternities. And he said, and we have some money. And we can pay for it. I said, okay then now how do we get the message? How do we get the signage and what we gonna put on it? So I said, well, I worked with the Alabama Historical Commission and we got the sign up and everything and we had a day on 2 0 2 that we put the sign up and it's there now. 

[00:24:56] Georgia: And that was before any board. That was before anybody [00:25:00] else, the school, anything that all grew out of this marker going up Georgia. That started with you? It started with me. 

[00:25:07] Cougar: So incredible. Mm-hmm. I love it. Tell us a little bit about your background, because when we were chatting before we started recording, you were talking about your ear early experience with education. 

[00:25:18] Georgia: Yes. 

[00:25:19] Cougar: Will you give us a little snippet of that for our listeners? 'cause I feel so privileged to hear that. Okay. My 

[00:25:25] Georgia: starting in the elementary school, the one. Room School with an upstairs was built in 1876 by slaves and a man named Mr. Brock, who was sent there by a religious group. And they built this school and we all community attended the school from one grade to sixth grade from kindergarten. 

[00:25:52] Georgia: 'cause at kindergarten, five years old in 1935, I was in kindergarten and [00:26:00] we were taught, well this one teacher had been to a local college and she still was in some training maybe, but she taught there 45 years. Mary Jenkins, and she was my ne our neighbor, you know? So in Char Locker it was a community school and had no sisters. 

[00:26:22] Georgia: I had two brothers, but. They just kinda let me have my way, you know? But we could go to school, we could carry lunches if we wanted to, or you could run home for lunch. And as long as you got back on time, because when you in that school, boys lined up on one side, girls lined up on the other side and she had a, she patrolled everything with a big long switch and she could reach anywhere in that school building. 

[00:26:52] Georgia: And so you go in and you are very quiet children were very disciplined at that time, and we learned now you [00:27:00] sit in a classroom from one grade to sixth grade, you knew everything. Because you're sitting there listening to it. But even after living that school, I said we had to go to a high school and a lot of people didn't get to go to high school past that because there was no transportation. 

[00:27:20] Georgia: It was 20 miles away and all black town of Hobson City, him and, but my father was a veteran. He worked at Camp McClellan. It was Camp McClellan when he was retired, but it became Fort McClellan. So my brother and I would get up at four o'clock in the morning and ride with my father in the mile of a school. 

[00:27:45] Georgia: We had to still have a mile to walk and we would walk. To the school and we get there sometime. The janitor was making the fire. And let me tell you, walking to that school, it was [00:28:00] streets were not paved. Rocky boy, boy, my daddy said, I tore up so many shoes walking to Hobson City, to the school. But when we would get there, the janitor had the fire made and everything and sometime we'd wait till he made it. 

[00:28:14] Georgia: Professor Hannah, I said, who was trained at Tuskegee and on the Booker t Washington. Little short man wore skull cap all the time and carried an umbrella. But we had devotion and we learned the scripture. And then you did that before you went to your classroom. And I first, I've heard of faith of our fathers. 

[00:28:46] Georgia: I learned it there. Wow. Sixth grade. And then we went into your classrooms and I was there from seventh grade through 12th grade [00:29:00] and all of our struggles of going to school, handling to get that out. My brother finished valedictorian and perfect attendance. 

[00:29:10] Cougar: Wow. 

[00:29:10] Georgia: I finished valedictorian following him and perfect attendance. 

[00:29:16] Georgia: Okay. Then where are you gonna go down? 

[00:29:18] Cougar: Yeah. 

[00:29:19] Georgia: You couldn't go to, I couldn't go to Jacksonville State and I lived just 10 miles from Jacksonville State, but I had a scholarship by the teachers and that scholarship was to Alabama State in Montgomery, Alabama. Now how you gonna get there? The Trailway bus. We rode the Trailway bus. 

[00:29:44] Georgia: And everybody on that line. That was Aniston Talladega Silly Car and all those places. We rode that bus to Alabama State College, and that's was our college. [00:30:00] Then we went after college. I became a teacher when I was there. I taught 38 years, and I was the first black teacher at Norwood Elementary School. 

[00:30:17] Georgia: Now when in the seventies when they integrated the schools in the, they integrated teachers before they integrated students. 

[00:30:24] Cougar: Oh, okay. Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:26] Georgia: And so they picked as, it's funny how they picked teachers to go to the white schools if you were too dark. They didn't pick you. If you didn't look the way they wanted you to look. 

[00:30:44] Georgia: They didn't send you to the white schools. But I went to Norwood Elementary School. It was so white that I didn't even know where I was going. My husband carried, I said, where is Norwood? So he carried me on Sunday evening and found out, and I [00:31:00] went and found the principal. I wanted to know her, and she was at the school that day. 

[00:31:09] Georgia: And I asked her, have you assigned rooms and show me where my room will be? And she said, yes. I said, will I be able to work in my room? She said, you mean you wanna come? And she said, what you gonna do? I said, well, there's bulletin boards to fix. I said, and if I'm gonna teach sixth grade, I have my books I need to select. 

[00:31:35] Georgia: So, you know, in elementary school then you taught everything. 

[00:31:39] Cougar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:40] Georgia: And I said, I need to just get it. And we had record players, A, B, C, record players, and I always used music in my classroom. And of course you had a devotion. I always said a prayer. And [00:32:00] for the parents loved me. I made the children loved me. 

[00:32:06] Georgia: I had no problems. And you know, because my faith in prayers, God just has been with me and kept me. And, and after about two years, they sent some more black teachers out. Okay. So my journey then has been through community activities, organizing things. I organized a heritage festival and my community, uh, community where we did quilting clubs, bringing people together In 1980, while I was still at Norwood, they appointed me to a board. 

[00:32:51] Georgia: Now she was talking about a. Integration of the library. The library and the museum was [00:33:00] downtown in Anniston on 10th Street. We were not allowed to go in the museum, were we allowed to go into the library? Unless she said in 1963, Reverend McCain, who was pastor of a Methodist church or pastor, Reverend Nq Reynolds, pastor of the 17th Street Baptist Church, they decided they were going to integrate the library. 

[00:33:32] Georgia: It was supposed to been a secret and there weren't, nobody was supposed to know they were gonna do this, but I'm sorry to say, sometimes the police got, and at that time, the police was much of, uh, the Klan as anybody else. Now they met those ministers there, beat [00:34:00] them, sent her pastor to the, busted his skull. 

[00:34:06] Georgia: They sent him to the hospital and they wouldn't treat him. 

[00:34:11] Cougar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:34:12] Georgia: He had to recover at home. Brother McCain was younger and he outran them so they didn't get to bother him. So that's where I started. Then the civil Rights Trail. So I have done a civil rights trail in Anniston and that portion is on that trail. 

[00:34:33] Cougar: Wow. Yeah. That was 1973, is that what you just said? 

[00:34:38] Georgia: No, it was 1963 because that was the same day that the little girls was killed in 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Okay. So that was a day. Wow. Yeah, that was a day. Alright. But anyway, at Norwood and I was appointed to the board at the Anderson Museum of [00:35:00] Natural History, the only person of color on that board. 

[00:35:08] Georgia: I would go to the board meetings, I'd go to the receptions, they would serve food and they wouldn't serve me. And the director said the director at that time was Mark Lane. And he said to me, why do you come out here? You the only black person out here. Why do you still come? I said, because I'm a board member. 

[00:35:38] Georgia: And I said, and that will change. I didn't know a bit more what I was seeing. I didn't know what I was gonna change. But you see, I have faith in God and God, you trust him. He'll just reveal to you. And you know how you get parents A PTA, you put the Children on program. [00:36:00] So I said, well, let me use some children. 

[00:36:05] Georgia: And I started off what we call a heritage festival. At Heritage Festival. We have children pre-K. Through 12th grade who recites poetry. It has to be done by a black poet. Now why black poet? 'cause they didn't put black people in books. We didn't have any black Langston Hughes and all. They were not in books. 

[00:36:34] Georgia: So now, 45 years later, this February the 15th of this year, we had our 45th year Wow. Of Heritage Festival children coming to the museum. We have vendors who come that day. We have people who come, and I always use A-H-B-C-U choir this year, didn't use A-H-B-C-U choir to changed it up and used [00:37:00] a jazz band, but this was 45 years of that. 

[00:37:05] Georgia: We did it at the Anson Museum of Natural History. So, you know the power of love and the power of forgiveness. And just taking the negative and making it a positive. That's a lot for you. Yeah. 

[00:37:24] Cougar: Mm-hmm. Oh my heavens. Okay. This is a spiritual experience for me. You're talking about seeing the mountains and feeling the grace of God, and I'm feeling it from your courage to be on the Heritage Board and not be able to go into the museum. 

[00:37:37] Cougar: Right. And to start to start this festival. And 45 years later, yes. You have seen so much change. 

[00:37:46] Georgia: So much change, 

[00:37:47] Cougar: but wow. Now I want to jump into forgiveness, and maybe I'm gonna pivot back to you, Trudy. Is that okay? Well, 

[00:37:55] Trudy: that's fine. 

[00:37:55] Cougar: Literally last night I lectured on the power of forgiveness. [00:38:00] The chapter in the textbook was called The Health Benefits of Spirituality and Religion, and there were a couple of main points from the chapter. 

[00:38:08] Cougar: The first is that spirituality allows us to see. Crisis as an opportunity for growth. Not a sign that God doesn't love you, that he's not aware of you, but just the opposite, that he loves you and he wants you to grow and he's there to help you. So let's take that big idea and then if we can combine that with a second big idea from the chapter, which was that we have to let go of an unforgiving stance, which is this desire to hold on to resentment, to remember every wrong that you've ever experienced, every slight, to continue to ruminate on that. 

[00:38:48] Cougar: And so, my goodness, there's some really amazing things that popped outta that chapter in that lecture last night, and the discussion from the students was remarkable. There's so much wisdom in this next generation. It's [00:39:00] amazing. But I'm right in front of two legends. You really are legends in the civil rights movement in your communities. 

[00:39:07] Cougar: So you've experienced. Not just, here are their slights. You've experienced racism, you, you've been boxed out in your own country. How have you worked through that? And feel free to share your faith, your trust in God, your savior, Jesus Christ. Feel free. Like we're all about that here. I promise you've probably had some wins and you've probably had some losses in this journey through forgiveness and faith and understanding and compassion. 

[00:39:36] Cougar: And so with that, there's not even a question in there. There's just a thought, just I'm sure you can make that beautiful if you'll speak to that for a minute. 

[00:39:44] Trudy: Okay. And I wanna just say too, in terms of segregation, I lived in a community, whereas we had everything. We had the shoemaker who was from Tuskegee, [00:40:00] and we had two shoemakers. 

[00:40:05] Trudy: They would bring our male students in to teach 'em how to repair shoes. We had to tailor, he was from Tuskegee under Booker t and George Washington Carver. Wow. And Booker t always said, cash. Your buckets where you are. Mm-hmm. And one of the things we had, everything we had, the church now was the nucleus of the community. 

[00:40:31] Cougar: Right. 

[00:40:32] Trudy: But we had the doctor on my street. We were segregated, we were together, we were unified. We had a community. So really, to be honest with you, I missed absolutely zero. We could go to the doctor. He was down the street. The dentist was next door to the doctor. They were brothers. Then we had the electrician. 

[00:40:52] Trudy: He was on our side. Now, I don't know whether he was trained, but he could always come up to the house and fix our electrical work. We had the [00:41:00] plum, then the minister lived in our community. And believe it or not, he had the right to chastises. I mean, if you add order in the community, he had the right to say, okay, you're doing something wrong and maybe he could give you a paddle or two. 

[00:41:16] Trudy: So we had a community and so like I didn't really miss anything. I really didn't. I had strong women in my family, my mother, and we had a family. Now it may not have been like a white family, you know, when you think about a white family, you think about mom and dad, two kids and the dog and a picket fence. 

[00:41:37] Trudy: But we didn't have that. We had mom, we had an extended family. It had so many uncles. Um, and of course we had a father, but he was in Florida, but he wasn't in the home. So we had a family. And so when people began to write about what consisted of a family, then they thought our family should have had dad. 

[00:41:58] Trudy: Mom, [00:42:00] two children, the dog and the picket fence. But we didn't have that. So we didn't have anyone at that time writing about our family, which was very strong in the community. 

[00:42:09] Cougar: Yeah. 

[00:42:09] Trudy: Now, let me just say this, and I'm just going to slide this in. Daniel Patrick Moham, who was the professor at Harvard University, as well as the Senator from New York State. 

[00:42:21] Trudy: He wrote a book and it was called The Deny and Neglect, and it was about us. Now we read the book, of course, he talked about our family. He was a sociologist, a PhD in sociology. 

[00:42:39] Cougar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:42:39] Trudy: And he wrote about our family, but he didn't quite understand our family. So about 30 years later, all these things that he had written, all of a sudden we began to see what he was writing about. 

[00:42:51] Trudy: But he wasn't quite correct. But on the other hand, we had a strong family and we had a strong church. That was the basis [00:43:00] for our community. So I really didn't feel like I missed anything. Now, when I left, I'm gonna tell you when really racism popped on me. It wasn't when I went to college and all that civil rights stuff, but when I went to work in New York State, 

[00:43:14] Cougar: mm, 

[00:43:15] Trudy: that's when I realized, uh uh, I was a little southern girl, and then I was a little black southern girl, and all of a sudden I didn't understand it. 

[00:43:25] Trudy: And the first thing the supervisor said to me, Trudy, you need to go to speech. And I said, why? Remember? I thought I was okay. I was southern and I was a southern girl. She said, well, we want you to lose that southern accent. I needed a job now. So I said, oh. I said, but do you understand what I'm saying? Oh, yes. 

[00:43:50] Trudy: She said, I understand exactly what you're saying. I said, well, okay. Well, it seems like I'm communicating. She said, no, we want you to, you know, when you go in the classroom, [00:44:00] we want the kids to understand what you're saying. I said, okay, okay. I also do just that. I never did, I never went to speech because I thought I was okay. 

[00:44:14] Trudy: Now, I began to see things a little clearer, and I know this sounds different, the children didn't know anyone but Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. I said, oh, I got work to do here. See, the movement goes on. 

[00:44:28] Cougar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:44:28] Trudy: So I had to start teaching our children in the north about other people that we had, along with Martin Luther King and Roosevelt. 

[00:44:37] Trudy: I think they remembered, uh, George Washington Carver with a peanut. They could remember that. So we said, we're gonna enlarge this scope. No matter what this, the state of New York says the curriculum is, we are gonna enlarge this. And we did. Now I learned if the children learned something about themselves, they did better in terms of attendance. 

[00:44:59] Trudy: They came to [00:45:00] school, they were on time. They were eager to learn. Guess what? I learned that in Anniston, Alabama. 'cause that's how they taught us. 

[00:45:07] Cougar: Mm-hmm. Okay. 

[00:45:08] Trudy: So that's how I taught my children when I was teaching in the Buffalo Public Schools. And also, I'm gonna extend a little bit. 

[00:45:16] Cougar: Yeah. 

[00:45:17] Trudy: I always feel that whatever experience you have, God wants you to have that experience so that when I sit on the other side of the table and say, I understand, I understand. 

[00:45:30] Trudy: So all these experiences that someone may define as being negative, I never saw them as being negative. In fact, I used them in my job. I was able to relate. So any, I don't know. Experiences are designed, in my opinion, for you to grow, and so I don't see it as being negative. I believe God is fixing me so that I can help somebody [00:46:00] else. 

[00:46:00] Cougar: I love it. I wish I'd had you in class last night, by the way, Trudy, you're teaching that very point, right? 

[00:46:08] Cougar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:46:08] Cougar: Tell me how have you handled frustration? I know that you just said, Hey, I see everything even good and bad. It's all giving me experience and helping me to be a better teacher and a better person. 

[00:46:21] Trudy: Yeah. 

[00:46:23] Cougar: What's the process like? Because we do experience unfairness and Yeah. I think it's in our nature now. We're changing our nature through God, but I think it's in our nature to. Hold onto that and be frustrated. So what's the process for you? Like? Is it between the ears and you say, well, that's a negative and it's gonna help me down the road. 

[00:46:47] Cougar: What's the process of forgiveness and how, I'm sure you've had some times where you did it better than others, and maybe you've suffered some of the consequences of holding on to hate and frustration. [00:47:00] Give me just a, just another glimpse into what's the process for you in your mind and in your heart? 

[00:47:07] Trudy: Well, let me give you a little, one day when I was working, this was probably the last 20 years of my academic life. I was in my office and a lady came in the door. I didn't know her, and she said, you look like you're having problem. And I said, I am. This was a stranger. 

[00:47:30] Cougar: Yeah. 

[00:47:30] Trudy: She said, can I pray for you? I said, pray for me now. 

[00:47:35] Trudy: I worked for the state of New York. I prayed all the time. But you couldn't do it publicly. 

[00:47:41] Cougar: Sure. 

[00:47:41] Trudy: Or you end up at the Supreme Court. 

[00:47:43] Cougar: Sure. 

[00:47:45] Trudy: So I said, pray for me. No one outta 30 years of my life had ever walked in my office. I was always trying to help others, but here comes someone to help me. And I said, well, you know, we're really not allowed to do this. 

[00:47:58] Trudy: I said, well, maybe I need to close the [00:48:00] blinds or something. She said, but I wanna pray for you. And I said, okay. I said, well, let me close the blinds now. So I got up and I closed the blinds 'cause I didn't want anyone to see that she was in there operating on me. And of course I didn't know it either. And so I let her do this. 

[00:48:19] Trudy: She didn't have a high school diploma. She may have gone to elementary school. She was down there getting a life in order. And she was, I would say an older lady, but she always wanted a high school equivalency diploma. That's why she was there. So anyway, she started praying for me and honestly a refreshing feeling that I cannot describe of my head and all the way to the bottom of my feet, I'm saying, Lord, what is this? 

[00:48:52] Trudy: You know, it wasn't that I don't know the Lord 'cause I did, but it was something that just came over me [00:49:00] and she finished and I knew she was different. She had that peacefulness and like a halo around her or something. I knew she was different, but I didn't know what, so this lady said to me, she said, well, Trudy, she said, I want you to come to one of our women's groups. 

[00:49:22] Trudy: And I said, well, when do you meet? She says, on Saturday at 10 o'clock. I said, oh no. That's the only time I can do my work at home. I work Monday through Friday. I'm not been Finn to leave. She said, but just come if you would only stay just an hour. I said, fine. I said, but only an hour because I'm on my way to the supermarket y the day I do all the work. 

[00:49:43] Cougar: Yeah. 

[00:49:45] Trudy: So I didn't know at the time I went over to her house. Never. I'm just meeting this woman, rang the doorbell. She came to the door and I walked into this huge house, but she [00:50:00] was the only one there. I said, oh lord, you can pick some things. This is what I'm saying to myself. I love experiences. I love to study. 

[00:50:08] Trudy: Religions stuff, all kinds. So I said, well, this might be a little different. But anyway, I went in. So she said, well, you know, God wants us to have this time together, divine time. I said, oh, good Lord. This is a nut I know. Oh my goodness. What have I done today? This, all I could think about was something that was actually negative. 

[00:50:30] Trudy: So this lady started praying for me again and again, if something came over, I can't even explain it. And I would say around 10 20 or so, the doorbell rings and here comes all these women. Thank the Lord, Lord, hallelujah. I said, oh, you picked a good thing here today. So they came in and they started teaching me how to read the Bible. 

[00:50:59] Trudy: [00:51:00] These women, and I'm gonna tell you, they told me, say, any time, anything in your life going wrong. Read Psalms 27. They taught me how to read it. They went line by line. Some of them were educated people, but others were spiritual people. They went line by line. This is how you read Psalms 27. Anytime you're feeling down when someone may have done something to you, for instance, when I got ready to come out here, I said, Lord, I wanna assess something that someone will listen. 

[00:51:37] Trudy: I started reading Psalms 27. 

[00:51:40] Cougar: I love it. I can't wait to go read it. 

[00:51:42] Trudy: Read Psalms 22 7. It gives you strength. 

[00:51:46] Cougar: It gives you the straight 

[00:51:47] Trudy: courage and any wrong that's been done to you. You know, it's okay. 

[00:51:53] Cougar: You can move past. 

[00:51:54] Trudy: Oh, good Lord. 

[00:51:55] Cougar: Yes. Oh, cool. I love it. Thank you for sharing that. You're welcome. [00:52:00] Georgia, is it Psalms 27 for you? 

[00:52:02] Cougar: Where? Ha, where have you Lord? It's my 

[00:52:04] Georgia: light and my salvation turn to the who shall I Fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. The whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came upon me, they stumbled and fell. Yes. Yes, the wicked. Love it. But you know what we, we've left out something for the silver for the Freedom Riders. 

[00:52:27] Cougar: Yeah, please. 

[00:52:28] Georgia: Hank Thomas and Charles Pearson was on two different buses. The Trailway bus was Charles Pearson's bus, and that's where the Klan went on the bus and beat them. Hank Thomas was on the bus. Where the tires was blown out. 

[00:52:52] Cougar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:52:52] Georgia: They got out on 10th Street and what we are leaving out is when he was blown out of that bus, [00:53:00] Janie ForSight, a little 12-year-old white girl, brought water to the people on the ground and she was, oh, they ostracized her. 

[00:53:19] Georgia: They ridiculed her and her parents finally had to get her out of town. They ran a foresite store there, but she felt the need that those people, 'cause Hank was on the ground and he was on water, there was others on the ground 'cause that that bomb blew them out of the bus. Mm-hmm. And Chaney foresight. And we haven't said anything about Chaney. 

[00:53:44] Georgia: Mm-hmm. 

[00:53:46] Cougar: So she had some courage. She had some courage. Sure. Yes, yes. Oh, that's amazing. Let me give you the last word before we switch gears here a little bit. Okay. Anything else you wanna say about resilience, about forgiveness, [00:54:00] about finding peace in a world that it appears is always going to have more than enough conflict? 

[00:54:08] Georgia: Yeah, you have to have patience. It's one thing to know a problem, to see a problem happening, but how do I get involved to solve the problem? And at first, all you pray and you ask God and he will show you. And in his scriptures he has it. Well, you know, you can be forgiven for, for what is happening to you. 

[00:54:36] Georgia: And you talk to people, you communicate with people. For instance, in, in my community. We have heritage Society and everybody's invited in the community, blacks and whites. I have white neighbors, I have black neighbors, and we work together, community. I have a [00:55:00] tea, invite everybody to the tea, have a picnic, invite everybody to the picnic and just don't invite 'em. 

[00:55:12] Georgia: Say, well you bring this, you bring some lemonade, you bring this, and you bring, give them, give them a job to do. You know? And then they feel responsible for getting this. And so every year we do the same thing. See, and that has brought peace. So there's a way ugliness and is not the way. Yeah. You don't do things to get back at people. 

[00:55:43] Georgia: You show love redeeming 

[00:55:47] Cougar: Georgia. That's a beautiful sermon. I just, as you're talking and thinking about, have a tea. Get, get everyone together. Yeah, 

[00:55:56] Georgia: get everyone together. 

[00:55:58] Cougar: I was recently out of the [00:56:00] country on a work trip in South America and our host, we had a free afternoon and they said, do you by chance enjoy mountain biking? 

[00:56:10] Cougar: I don't know how they, yes, that's if you list my loves in life outside of my family and my, yeah. Mountain biking's. It is number one. And anyway, this professor, he said, 'cause if, if you're okay with that, it'd be great if we could go for a ride together. And we got in his car and we drove up this beautiful scenery, went for a mountain bike ride and he had some of his friends came along and I brought some of my students and we had this afternoon together of riding down through this beau beautiful mountains in Ecuador. 

[00:56:42] Cougar: And at the end of the day I said, the whole world just needs to go on a bike ride together. And it, you could fill in, the whole world needs to have tea together. The whole world needs to go to lunch together, which is what you two need to do very soon. I don't wanna hold you up from that, but. There's so [00:57:00] much in as far as how our differences can be resolved. 

[00:57:04] Cougar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:57:04] Cougar: When we get together, we talk, we share our perspectives, we share something together, whether it be T or a Mountain Trail. Mm-hmm. There's just something about that connection. And I'm certain, I'm certain that our heavenly father wants his, all of his children to connect in peace and in love and Oh, there's so much there. 

[00:57:23] Cougar: I can't wait to read Psalms 27, by the way, even though I think you just recited it for me. Yes. Trudy, let me give you your last word too. Okay. 'cause we've covered a lot of ground, but is there a take home message you want our listeners to hear? 

[00:57:38] Trudy: Yes. What God gives to you is your gift from God, but what you do for others, like the elderly, like our children, the poor, our veterans. 

[00:57:57] Trudy: Is your gift back to God. [00:58:00] That's my last. 

[00:58:03] Cougar: Love it. I think the, I think the kids call that a mic drop. Okay. I think you just did it. Before I switch gears, I'm gonna turn to Dr. Anthony Bates here in a moment who's been instrumental in getting you both here. Just let me express my love for you and just sheer admiration. 

[00:58:22] Cougar: Yeah. From one generation to another, the work that you did has made my life better and I hope to pick up the torch, so to speak, and do that for my students. It gets better. It's always getting better. There's work to do. We all have our own work to do. You know, we can complain about conflict on a geopolitical scale, you know, nations at war and different politics. 

[00:58:46] Cougar: But in my faith community, we were recently admonished to be peacemakers. And rather than be frustrated with conflict on a global scale to try to [00:59:00] erase conflict in our own lives. So I can complain about things that are happening in Ukraine if I want, but how about things that are happening in my home? 

[00:59:11] Cougar: How about things that are happening in my community? As Georgia was just talking about, what can I do to spread peace, to increase love there? And you too are perfect examples of that admonition. And so I thank you for that and for the impact you've had on me this morning. Thanks so much. And Georgia, I can tell looking in your eyes, you have one more thing to share, so I wanna give you the last word. 

[00:59:36] Cougar: I think you've earned that. 

[00:59:37] Georgia: The last word is the more we get together, the better 

[00:59:41] Cougar: we'll be. Oh, I love it. Another mic drop for us. Thank you, Georgia. So Anthony, that was such an amazing discussion. I wanna bring you in on this too. You're sitting here and I don't know how you're staying awake 'cause I'm kind of boring, but you are at the Sorenson Center for, is it [01:00:00] Moral and Ethical Leadership? 

[01:00:02] Cougar: Mm-hmm. Okay. And that's a mouthful, but interestingly enough, I teach a class for the freshman here called Unit 1 0 1. I just had them go to your website last week. Oh, okay. And I said just spend 15 minutes and explore all the things that are happening here. I really, there's a lot of good work around leadership that's happening and I don't know enough myself. 

[01:00:21] Cougar: So will you give us more of an introduction of who you are and what you're doing at the center? Is that alright? 

[01:00:26] Anthony: Yeah, so I've been a staff member on campus. I'm coming up on 20 years now. Oh, wow. So most of that has been in, in student activities, student engagement, student affairs. So I've been in Multicultural Student Services. 

[01:00:40] Anthony: I was in Student Connection and Leadership, and the Sorenson Center for Moral and Ethical Leadership has been just a fantastic opportunity and really I think it's the culmination of a lot of the work that I've done on campus because the vision of the center is to inspire and equip individuals to lead people as Jesus Christ does. 

[01:00:58] Anthony: And so that encompasses [01:01:00] a lot of things. And we're a campus-wide center, so we get. Campus wide purview to, to engage and interact with people on just the, just the range of really good leadership work that's happening on campus. And so it's just been really fun and really deeply meaningful to engage with campus in a really important dialogue, particularly in this moment in time. 

[01:01:22] Anthony: And so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. 

[01:01:25] Cougar: I have to tell you, this is, this is just so interesting. Literally 48 hours ago was in a church meeting and we were talking about leadership and I, I said, I just wanna pull up a graphic of the leadership model we're using. Center Leader model. Yeah. And I brought it up and it blew minds. 

[01:01:41] Cougar: And I'm like, why didn't I lead with this? Like, why did I wait until we're 40 minutes into a discussion to say, we need to look at this graphic? Mm-hmm. Because it hits the perfect balance. It's Christ-like attributes brought together for whatever organization or group you might be leading in your home. 

[01:01:57] Cougar: Mm-hmm. In your church service, in your employment. So [01:02:00] really cool. 

[01:02:01] Anthony: Right? You wanna do another podcast on it? I'd be happy I could go on for a long time about the Crescent Leader model and the impact it's had on me personally. 

[01:02:08] Cougar: Yeah. Oh, well let's do that. Let's put that on the calendar. Okay. Perfect. Tell me a little bit of your role. 

[01:02:13] Cougar: Okay, and thank you for bringing Trudy and Georgia to campus. 

[01:02:17] Anthony: Perfect. Yeah, so I serve as the managing director for the center. So that's just looking at the range of leadership opportunities, engagement pieces. There's a little piece of some previous roles that I kind of carried with me into the Sorenson Center, so how I came to meet these incredible women and all the people that are associated with them. 

[01:02:37] Anthony: In 2012, I was kind of a part of the initial pilot group for an African American civil rights seminar that originates out of the family home and social sciences department, and I was fortunate enough to just to get to continue. In that. So as of my last count, I've had the chance to host 17 different groups. 

[01:02:56] Anthony: Wow. Down south. And I, I wanna make just one quick adjustment, [01:03:00] please. The, the, the Civil Rights leadership or the, the Civil Rights seminar, a tour. Would connote that. You know, we take 'em down and we show 'em around to things. We're not letting people off that easy, okay, we, we gotta do some homework. Good. Uh, we gotta do some research, we gotta have some discussions. 

[01:03:16] Anthony: We gotta sort some things out. Because I want the students and the staff and the faculty when they go down, I want them to appreciate who they're interacting with. I want them to appreciate the places where they're standing. And I think if you just show sight unseen and you simultaneously try to take it in and learn at the same time, you're gonna have a really hard time engaging with that. 

[01:03:35] Anthony: So from that civil rights seminar, when I came over into the Sorenson Center, I said there are some really valuable leadership principles and leadership figures that I think we can learn from. And that can be a continuation of the learning that's happened in the seminar. So in the Sorenson Center, we have a lead out leadership experience that is specifically geared towards faculty and staff. 

[01:03:59] Anthony: Cool. [01:04:00] And I think one of the, one of. Best contributions I think we're making in that capacity is giving back leaders and patriots of American history that aren't found in a lot of our history books. And they're surprised that some of the, the people that they can interact with there, they're like, how did I not know about this experience? 

[01:04:22] Anthony: How did I not know about this person? 

[01:04:24] Cougar: Yeah. 

[01:04:25] Anthony: And then some really important historical figures that have some really solid leadership lessons and values and just deep seated Christ centered beliefs that really guide and direct the courageous decisions we all need to make as leaders. And there's so many 

[01:04:43] Cougar: examples from our past, from our history, but we're, we're often so siloed. 

[01:04:48] Cougar: Mm-hmm. And whether that's due to geography or just social standing or class or race or ethnicity or gender, we're we just, we have so many. [01:05:00] Additional opportunities if we, if we will take advantage of them to learn and to not repeat the past. And I just, there's so many things you can tell I'm married to a, a history major, but it's just, there's so much there for us. 

[01:05:13] Cougar: And, and we're losing some of that as, as we go from Georgia and Trudy's generation to the children that I'm raising in my home. 

[01:05:21] Anthony: Yep. 

[01:05:22] Cougar: And so it's just what a great work that we're doing here that you're doing, not me that, that you're doing. Although, please invite me on the seminar in 

[01:05:29] Anthony: the future. Yes. Yeah. 

[01:05:30] Anthony: I, I know a guy. Okay, good. I think that's a great segue. And, and maybe this is actually the concluding point 'cause I don't want to. Detract or add too much from what Georgia and Trudy have said, because I could just sit at their, their feet all day long and listen to the, the incredible experience they've had. 

[01:05:48] Anthony: But pursuant to what you just said, I think there's a really important, and I'm gonna actually bring in a Book of Mormon example, please. When, when in third Nephi 23, Christ appears in the [01:06:00] Americas, and he's reviewing the record and he says, you're missing something here. Yeah. And he says, you don't have Sam de Lamanites words. 

[01:06:09] Anthony: Those need to be included in the record throughout all my time. And I'm going to go through a little who's who here of, of who I've had the opportunity to meet, not as a self-aggrandizing thing in any way, shape or form, but it's really been a humbling experience for me as I've had Georgia, Trudy and, and everyone else that's, that's accompanied them or really have given me the chance to reflect on who I've had the chance to sit at The feet of Nelson Malden is Martin Luther King's. 

[01:06:37] Anthony: He was Martin Luther King's barber during the Montgomery Bus boycotts. Oh, okay. He and I are on the phone. Every, every three to four months. Oh my goodness. Uh, he and his wife Dean are just the most incredible people and the stories he has from sitting in the barbershop with Dr. King, I have had the chance to interact with three or four Birmingham children's, children's [01:07:00] youth marchers. 

[01:07:01] Anthony: When you see the old footage of the hoses, the fire hoses and the dogs, and I've had the chance, we mentioned Charles person. Mm-hmm. Um, Catherine Brooks. Brooks was another Freedom Rider that I've had the chance to spend some time with Rosa Parks pastor and his wife, Reverend Robert Gretz and his wife Jeanie. 

[01:07:19] Anthony: I've had the chance to spend some time with the 12-year-old president of the NAACP Youth Council that operated under Rosa Parks. I've had time to spend with Ms. Doris and. Pursuant to us losing histories when we're talking about histories that are either not covering or removing from our shelves, these histories are still with us and we're still talking about people who are still here. 

[01:07:46] Anthony: And every time I come back from one of these experiences and I engage with this history, and more importantly, I gauge with these people, I feel this deep sacred responsibility to try to carry on their legacy [01:08:00] and to try to tell their story as much as I possibly can and to try to make some of their story, my story as well. 

[01:08:07] Anthony: And I think with the overall theme of love and forgiveness, we are in a really trying time, and I have drawn on these stories a lot. Fred Shuttlesworth in particular is one whose story I draw on a lot. And if you don't, who? Fred Shuttlesworth, I would encourage you to do your own work because he. Was a man who was so tenacious in defense of what he thought was right. 

[01:08:35] Anthony: Another one is John Lewis. Yeah. Fannie Lou Hamer are just people that I look up to. I had to be wells where their dogged determination to pursue what was right, but holding true to their faith, holding true to God's, that God would preserve them and help them and, and to not [01:09:00] get embittered by a whole host of things that, quite frankly, I would think they have every right in the world to be as angry and mad as they want to be right about things. 

[01:09:09] Anthony: And seeing the examples of the people around me hasn't really given me permission to settle into bitterness. Yeah. And anger. If I'm going to pay homage to the people that I've interacted with, I have every responsibility in the world to try to find. Justice and peace from a spirit of reconciliation, forgiveness, love, and it's transformed who I am to be completely honest on that love being able to dip into that well and draw from it as much as I possibly can. 

[01:09:42] Anthony: So every time I get to go down, it's this kind of reigniting of this responsibility that I think I've been able to claim as a result of just incredible people like we've talked to today. 

[01:09:54] Cougar: Well, I can tell you're a blessed man, like with these experiences, and that's a little bit of what I felt today as we've [01:10:00] had this discussion too, just inspired. 

[01:10:03] Cougar: I keep referencing this lecture that I experienced last night with my students and one of the lines in the book, again, talking about resilience, talking about forgiveness, it spoke to alignment. Are we aligning our actions that the efforts, the goals, the movements that we're engaged in, are we aligning that with our deepest held values and beliefs? 

[01:10:26] Cougar: And I'm hearing you speak to that, that as you've met these giants in the civil rights movement, it's brought you some peace, but it's also taught you by example that this is how I'm to navigate my current environment. Yeah. To do it in a way where there's integrity. And there's faith and there's alignment with who I'm really trying to be, which is our savior, Jesus Christ. 

[01:10:51] Cougar: So, yep. Anthony, you have blessed me, my friend. You're 

[01:10:55] Anthony: very welcome. 

[01:10:56] Cougar: I, there's some envy because of the experiences that you've had, [01:11:00] and I didn't catch Fred's last name, but this is one of the people I need to learn about. 

[01:11:04] Anthony: Yes. 

[01:11:04] Cougar: And so I'm, I'm adding Psalms 27 to my list. I think I might need to memorize that if I'm gonna keep up with Georgia. 

[01:11:10] Cougar: And then also if, if you'll share with me that name. Do you wanna just say it one more time? Fred. Fred Shuttlesworth. 

[01:11:16] Anthony: Shuttlesworth. And I would say John Lewis. John Lewis are, there's a couple of books that are out. Or John Lewis Walking with the Wind. He was no small in he in every. Like significant lunch counter sit-ins, freedom Rides, bloody Sunday. 

[01:11:33] Anthony: Freedom Summer. Like he wasn't just like a bystander in all those places. He was frontline in the trenches with everything that happened. Yeah. 

[01:11:41] Cougar: There's a famous picture of him where he's suffered a wound on the top of his head, I believe. And so these 

[01:11:46] Anthony: bus rides, freedom Rides we're talking about. That's, that's John Lewis was on the other bus that was headed to Montgomery. 

[01:11:51] Anthony: And so, yeah. Yeah, I do recall that image. 

[01:11:54] Cougar: Okay. What a, what a blessing. I've got homework to do. I love that the seminar includes the [01:12:00] homework. It's not just we're gonna hit these, you know, these locations and, but to, to take it deeper, to do that work, to do the study. Yeah. So thank you so much. I, I can't hold the three of you up much longer 'cause I think you have an important lunch date and then you're speaking again tonight on campus. 

[01:12:17] Cougar: So Yes, boy, I hope we give you an afternoon Siesta too. But thank you Trudy, Georgia Anthony for, for doing all the good work that you're doing and for being an example to me. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us today. Catch us on our next episode and don't forget to subscribe to Future Y Health episodes.