Religion and Civil Rights: Spring Break in Mississippi

Take REL340SL Religion and the Civil Rights Movement and spend Spring Break in Jackson, Mississippi working with and learning about race, religion, civil rights, and reconciliation. We will be staying at the volunteer house of Voice of Calvary Ministries. Started in the 1960s by John Perkins, Voice of Calvary (VOC) continues to be one of the leading experiments in Christian community development and racial reconciliation. Over the last forty years thousands of volunteers have been trained and inspired at VOC to return to their own communities and churches and work for change. This is an extraordinarily influential organization in the history of modern American Christianity and we get to participate and observe up close for a week.

We will volunteer at VOC, attend worship, have training from members of the ministry. Some students will have the opportunity to intern for the week with Mission Mississippi, the largest ecumenical racial reconciliation initiative in the United States. We will also visit civil rights sights including the Lorraine Motel in Memphis now the National Civil Rights Museum and Medgar Evers house in Jackson. We will take time out from our community work to meet with veterans of the civil rights movement and hear their stories.
This will change you’re the way you see the Church, you neighbors, and America. (guaranteed!)