Just before the semester started, Smith and 44 other students stepped on a bus for the ninth annual Civil Rights and Social Justice Experience, hosted by UTSA’s Student Leadership Center.
In five days the students visited some of the most prominent sites of the U.S. civil rights movement as well as several museums that commemorate the era.
While Smith knew she’d return to UTSA with newfound knowledge on her culture, she didn’t realize the impact it would have on her.
So you recently just went on the Civil Rights and Social Justice Experience. Can you tell me about it?
For me, it was so impactful because these are my ancestors. The fact that I can go and learn all these things that I was never taught in school or during Black History Month was amazing. I was very grateful that I was given the opportunity to be able to go. Imagine how many students don’t often get to go and learn these types of things.
What motivated you to be part of this opportunity?
Well, I’ve always been active with the Student Leadership Center. Everything they do I usually am apart of or try to be part of. For this particular trip, I usually go home for the holiday break, but this year I was like, “It’s my last year. I have to go on this trip!”
They had been asking me since my sophomore year, so I decided to finally do it. We all want to leave our mark. It’s something a lot of students have the most wonderful experience doing.
I know you all had several days on this trip with a vast selection of museum visits and cities. Can you tell me a little bit about what you saw and what stood out the most for you?
We went to Edgar, Louisiana, to visit the Whitney Plantation. This plantation focuses more on the story of the slaves. I’ve been to other plantations and usually it focuses more on the slave owners and their commercial background because it was a business.
The Whitney Plantation also focused on the children, which is very hard for me because I want to be a pediatrician, so kids are very dear to my heart. All around the plantation they had these statues of slave children, and it just kind of told their stories. It was very emotional. I’ve seen things like that before, but because it was told from a different perspective it made it a lot more meaningful. It hit home a little more.
The places we visited had so much history that I’d never heard before. I can’t even put it into words, but it’s so crazy how much is left out of a textbook or how much we do not learn in the curriculum. Me even being from Tennessee, you would think I would know some of this stuff, but I didn’t.
At the National Museum of Peace and Justice they have soil that they took from places where people were lynched. There are all these jars lined against the wall, and each has the person’s name on it.
Even though it hit home for me because these people were my ancestors, I think it kind of hit more for everyone else as well. This is everyone’s history; not just mine. It’s not a good story, but it’s very meaningful on how we can move forward. But we still have work to do.
Before going on the trip what were your overall views and thoughts on what Black History Month is?
For me, in elementary school and middle school, Black History Month was a very big thing and often we were told, “OK, pick someone for Black History Month that influences you and write a report or make a poster.” They’d often give us lists of names, and these names were very common and recurring every year.
I knew I’d learn about new people on this trip, but I didn’t know I’d learn to this extent. There are many people I learned about whose stories were silenced or underminded because their work was believed to not be important.
Do you think your views on the month have changed or been enhanced now that you’ve experienced this?
I just feel so empowered to do something more for Black History Month and have more ideas to get this information out.
Everyone should be empowered about Black History Month, not just black people. This is our society that we live in, so I think it’s something we should use as unity and come together to fellowship about. It’s something that’s not just solely for black people, and I think that’s something I didn’t understand before the trip. But after, it’s something that sat with me a lot.
All of our history matters, not just black history. We should all embrace everyone’s history. We should embrace Hispanic Heritage Month…everyone’s culture. All our histories combined make America what it is today. We would not be where we are today if our histories didn’t come into play. It’s something that should be bring unity and not separation, which I think is a common idea when people think of Black History Month.
Do you have you a new insight of your identity and your culture after the trip?
Definitely. I think that me being able go on this trip helped me learn more about my own identity. Aside from all the information that I learned, it empowered me because I saw how hard they fought. Often, I think, “Oh, like, we’re good now. Like, society is better, so it doesn’t matter.”
We’ve become just content with how things are, and I think we still have a long way to go. I don’t want to say we’ve lost our culture, but we’ve lost pride in our culture. We’ve lost our resilience to things.
I’m thankful I can get an education now and I thank them for that, but I want to do a lot more. Our youth in our community still need help and they’re not striving as much as they could because we’ve become content with how everything is. I hope to take everything that I've learned back to those youths because I want them to see that they can do anything.
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This event will acknowledge graduating seniors from the McNair Scholars program at UTSA before inducting the new cohort of scholars into the program.
North Paseo Building (NPB 5.140), Main CampusAt this memorable celebration, UTSA graduates will be introduced one-by-one to cross the stage and accept their doctoral degrees.
Arts Building Recital Hall, Main CampusRoadrunner Walk is an event for graduating students to have a memorable walk on campus to celebrate an important milestone and their achievements. Graduates will walk along the Paseo while being celebrated by the UTSA community, friends, and family members.
Student Union Paseo, Main CampusCelebrate the accomplishments of College of Education and Human Development, College for Health, Community and Policy, College of Sciences and University College.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St.Celebrate the accomplishments of Alvarez College of Business, College of Liberal and Fine Arts and Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St.The University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
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