Tennessee High School Team Gets Lesson In Civil Rights

Knoxville News Sentinel

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jan/20/bearden-high-school-basketball-team-steps-away/

Bearden High School’s basketball players stood in a basement room of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., last summer.

They were studying the Civil Rights Movement during their team camp trip to Alabama and Mississippi.

It was in that basement room of 16th Street Baptist Church where the Ku Klux Klan set off a bomb that killed four young black girls as they prepared for Sunday school.

“It was so small of an area, Bearden junior Isaiah Campbell said. It killed those little girls instantly.”

Standing in the room, that spot where the bomb blew up Sept. 15, 1963, was a true learning experience for the Bulldogs.

“To know it was four little girls who never did any harm to anybody, it was moving and eye-opening, Campbell said.

That type of learning is what Bearden basketball coach Mark Blevins seeks for his players during their summer team camps.

They play plenty of good basketball each summer

on their team trips, but Blevins — who teaches history at Bearden —wants his players to focus on a lot more than hoops.

Blevins always has a theme for his summer team camps.

(Last) summer I wanted it to revolve around Civil Rights, Blevins said. My basketball camps will always be educational. We played a bunch of good teams in Birmingham and Mississippi, but the primary reason was to study the Civil Rights Movement and the March of Birmingham in the summer of 1963.”

Dr. Martin Luther King led that march on April 12, 1963. Two more children’s marches in Birmingham that May led to violence and arrests — helping lead President John F. Kennedy’s push for Civil Rights legislation.

Blevins and his players also visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute across the street from the church that was bombed.

“You hear stories and read about it, but if you actually go there, it’s a different experience, senior Brady Smith said. There are a lot of things you hear and read about, but the museum we went to, there is tons of stuff we learned about what life was like (for blacks) back then.

“It’s the same as seeing where the bomb went off. If you go and see what it’s actually like, it’s like you really believe it, instead of just knowing it.”

Tennessee High School Team Gets Lesson In Civil Rights

Knoxville News Sentinel

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jan/20/bearden-high-school-basketball-team-steps-away/

Bearden High School’s basketball players stood in a basement room of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., last summer.

They were studying the Civil Rights Movement during their team camp trip to Alabama and Mississippi.

It was in that basement room of 16th Street Baptist Church where the Ku Klux Klan set off a bomb that killed four young black girls as they prepared for Sunday school.

“It was so small of an area, Bearden junior Isaiah Campbell said. It killed those little girls instantly.”

Standing in the room, that spot where the bomb blew up Sept. 15, 1963, was a true learning experience for the Bulldogs.

“To know it was four little girls who never did any harm to anybody, it was moving and eye-opening, Campbell said.

That type of learning is what Bearden basketball coach Mark Blevins seeks for his players during their summer team camps.

They play plenty of good basketball each summer

on their team trips, but Blevins — who teaches history at Bearden —wants his players to focus on a lot more than hoops.

Blevins always has a theme for his summer team camps.

(Last) summer I wanted it to revolve around Civil Rights, Blevins said. My basketball camps will always be educational. We played a bunch of good teams in Birmingham and Mississippi, but the primary reason was to study the Civil Rights Movement and the March of Birmingham in the summer of 1963.”

Dr. Martin Luther King led that march on April 12, 1963. Two more children’s marches in Birmingham that May led to violence and arrests — helping lead President John F. Kennedy’s push for Civil Rights legislation.

Blevins and his players also visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute across the street from the church that was bombed.

“You hear stories and read about it, but if you actually go there, it’s a different experience, senior Brady Smith said. There are a lot of things you hear and read about, but the museum we went to, there is tons of stuff we learned about what life was like (for blacks) back then.

“It’s the same as seeing where the bomb went off. If you go and see what it’s actually like, it’s like you really believe it, instead of just knowing it.”