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Published: Jul. 13, 2022, 4:11 p.m.
Head
Coach Mel Tucker returns an autographed football to a fan during Michigan State
University’s spring football practice at Spartan Stadium on Saturday, April 16,
2022 (Jenifer Veloso | MLive.com)Jenifer
Veloso
By Matt Wenzel | mwenzel2@mlive.com
Michigan
State football will be well represented on an educational trip to Alabama about
the civil rights movement.
Coach
Mel Tucker, wide receiver Tre Mosley, offensive tackle Spencer
Brown and tight end Maliq Carr are part of a group from the university taking part this weekend in the Big
Life Series: Selma to Montgomery, it was announced Wednesday. Michigan
State chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer Dr. Ashley Baker and
women’s track and field standout Brooke Bogan will also represent the
university on the trip.
The Big Life Series: Selma to Montgomery,
was announced by the Big Ten during Black History Month this year as an action
of the conference’s equality coalition. The conference will send a group of 100
athletes, coaches, administrators and staff on a trip that will also include
representatives from the Pac-12 and ACC.
“We
established the Big Life Series to help further prepare our student-athletes to
impact the world beyond their athletic careers,” Big Ten commissioner Kevin
Warren said in a press release. “Our trip to Selma and Montgomery is a first in
a series of trips that our student-athletes, administrators, and members of the
Big Ten Equality Coalition will take to
inspire a meaningful dialogue about racial, social, religious, and cultural
injustices in our nation. Big Life Series: Selma to Montgomery will empower our Big Ten Conference family to use
their voices to drive change in their respective communities.”
The Selma to Montgomery marches, led by Dr.
Martin Luther King in the 1965, were organized to fight for voting rights and
the 54-mile route in 1996 was established as the Selma to Montgomery National
Historic Trail. Nonviolent marchers were stopped and beaten by law enforcement
while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, in what became known
at Bloody Sunday.
“This is an incredible opportunity to
provide our Spartan student-athletes with an in-person learning experience in
one of the most iconic historical sites of the Civil Rights Movement,” Baker
said in a press release. “My hope is that we are able to embrace the learning,
reflect on the experience, and return to our campus inspired to continue the
push for change in our local community and beyond.”
The trip starts Friday night in Montgomery
with viewing of the documentary series “Eyes on the Prize,” and a keynote
speech from Sheyann Webb-Christburg, author and eyewitness of Bloody Sunday. On
Saturday, the group will head to the First Baptist Church in Selma where
students began the march to Montgomery.
Participants will march across the Edmund
Pettus Bridge before returning to Montgomery to tour a variety of locations,
including the Civil Rights Memorial Center, the Alabama Department of Archives
and History, the Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Museum: From enslavement to
mass incarceration, and the Interpretive Center at Alabama State University.
Those on the trip will spend Saturday night listening to EJI Legacy Museum
founder and social justice lawyer Bryan Stevenson before breaking off into
groups to discuss their experiences. Those smaller sessions will be led by
university diversity, equity and inclusion directors.
“I am so happy to be given the opportunity
to go to Selma,” Bogan said in a press release. “I believe that going to see
things such as the Edmund Pettus Bridge will really shine light on a new
perspective for me. It’s one thing to learn about events and another to really
be in the environment where said events actually happened. I’m excited for the
knowledge and further understanding I’ll gain from this trip.”
