Rabbi's Blog

This weekend my family and I are heading to Atlanta and Alabama for a few days to visit some of the significant sites of events that were central to the Civil Rights Movement. We will visit the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma with a woman who participated in the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights protest march that was attacked by police as they attempted to cross the bridge. We will go to the Equal Rights Museum and Memorial (also known as the “Lynching Museum”) founded in part by Bryan Stevenson, one of the most articulate spokespeople for civil rights and human rights in our country today. We will be meeting with the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the premiere U.S. non-profit organization that monitors the activities of domestic hate groups and other extremists.

I am excited, as well as somewhat nervous, about the trip. Having been to several concentration camps, I know it can be overwhelming to stand on holy ground that witnessed man’s inhumanity to man and the senseless suffering of untold tens of thousands of people. Still, I am looking forward to sharing the journey with you upon my return.