On July 25th-28th, 2024, members of Boston Neighbors United For a Better East Boston (NUBE) joined UFE for a Civil Rights tour led by our Director of Southern Inclusive Economies, Ana Delia Espino. Developed in collaboration with NUBE, UFE designed and hosted an Alabama Civil Rights Tour and analysis using our newest workshop, Racism in the Mind, Skin, and Action. The 4-day event centered on teaching economic justice through a racial lens.

NUBE, an immigrant-led base-building organization, and UFE have previously worked together in collaborative efforts. Both groups are committed to working with their communities in a culturally competent manner. The foci of the Civil Rights Tour and training were: to build a space of introspection and healing, build community, and raise awareness about the nation’s history of racial inequity and social injustice. It was co-facilitated by two graduates from UFE’s first Grassroots Organizing School of Alabama (GOSA) cohort. 

Day 1

Participants began in the Alabama 4-H Center, where they engaged in a circle presentation for self-introductions, group agreements, and brought items of importance for the community altar, followed by a land acknowledgement. One of the main activities planned for the training took place on the first day, where participants were allowed to pick between a Black or White doll to take with them. At the end of day following the scheduled activities, facilitators showed a video sharing the purpose of the activity. 

A global social experiment, the doll test aims to study the effects of racial bias and prejudice, used in landmark court cases such as Brown v. Board and continues to be an important model in conversations about racial justice and to raise awareness about unconscious racial bias. Facilitators allowed participants to make an organic analysis of their own choices, and reflect about why people truly chose the doll they took with them. Participants were given time to write in journals, reflect on their decisions, and have discussions with other members about their experiences.

Day 2

Participants arrived at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, where they participated in group activities and completed reflections on their visits to Linn Park and 16th Street Baptist Church. Linn Park, filled with rallies and protests during the Black Lives Matter protests that took place in 2020, continues to be an active location for rallies and social justice initiatives. 16th Baptist Church was the first Black church in the United States, and was bombed in the year 1963, a time when segregation was still legal in the nation. Participants were able to reflect on their experience at the end of the day, where they shared their feelings and reactions. 

Day 3

Saturday, described as the heaviest day by Espino, entailed a visit to Selma, an epicenter of the civil rights movement in Alabama. Beginning with a tour of the Selma Civil Rights Memorial Park, NUBE members got to learn about the park’s history in the path to voting rights for African Americans and Afro Descendants in the United States. Afterwards, participants got the opportunity to walk through years of civil rights history and cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. This was a place of violence for people marching to protest for civil rights, voter registration, especially those who took part in the March to Selma.

Day 4

On the last day of the training, participants took part in a “Restorative Circle,” where they discussed questions such as, “What are you taking away from this experience, and what are you leaving behind?” The women of NUBE shared that they took in a lot of impactful information and that learning about Latin America’s involvement in the slave trade made a great impact in their perspective.