A travel course through the American Civil Rights Trail
Civil Rides is a ten-day travel course through the Deep South. You'll visit the sites where the Civil Rights Movement happened, read the primary sources that fueled it, and write your way into understanding what this history means for us now.
Co-taught by faculty from English, Theology, and Social Work, this course treats civil rights landmarks as living texts. Churches, bridges, museums, courthouses, and memorial landscapes become the documents you read, analyze, and respond to through sustained writing and reflection.
“When in the name of heaven, shall a man who fears God speak, if not now?”James B. Simmons, HSU Founder, 1858
In 1858, James B. Simmons, a Baptist pastor in Indianapolis, watched a fugitive slave get shot in the street by a deputy marshal. He was horrified. He asked himself a question that would define the rest of his life:
“When in the name of heaven, shall a man who fears God speak, if not now?” I did speak. My subject was ‘The American Slave System tried by the Golden Rule.’
He spoke. He was threatened with tar and feathers. His church burned to the ground. And he kept going.
After the Civil War, Simmons devoted himself to building schools for formerly enslaved people across the South. As Corresponding Secretary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, he helped found ten colleges, including institutions that became Virginia Union University, Benedict College, Shaw University, and Morehouse College. For Simmons, education was the engine of moral transformation.
This is the man who founded our university. His remains are buried on our campus, next to his wife Mary, just south of where Old Main once stood. He hoped that even their "very ashes may witness for Christian Education."
Before he died, Simmons sent a letter to Abilene with two questions he asked of every faculty member, trustee, and student at the college he had founded:
Civil Rides takes students to the places where Americans answered those questions with their lives. We travel in the spirit of our founder, who understood that Christian faith demands more than knowing. It demands doing.
From Abilene, you'll travel east to Jackson, Mississippi, then move through Alabama's Civil Rights corridor before turning north to Memphis and homeward through Little Rock. Each city anchors a movement of the course's larger arc: encounter, understanding, and formation.
This course has a rhythm. Each day follows a pattern designed to prepare you for what you'll encounter, give you space to experience it fully, and help you process what you've seen.
The group gathers before boarding to read the scriptural texts that inspired Civil Rights activists. This frames each day spiritually and intellectually.
En route to each site, you'll engage with curated historical texts, primary sources, poetry, films, and music that prepare you for what you're about to encounter.
Museums, churches, bridges, monuments, and memorial landscapes. You'll observe, document, and reflect on what you encounter.
A nightly gathering where the group processes the day together as a community of believers. We bring our whole selves to this, including our faith, as we reckon with what we've witnessed and ask honest questions about what it means for how we live.
This course is more than a tour. It's an experience of culture, community, and faith. You'll visit historic sites, worship together in churches that shaped the movement, encounter art and music, share meals, and wrestle with the questions our founder asked of every student: What is the greatest thought that has ever occupied your mind, and what will you do about it?
All students travel together regardless of which course they're enrolled in. Each course shares the same itinerary and daily rhythm but emphasizes different disciplinary lenses and assignments.
Use writing as a tool for inquiry and meaning-making. You'll keep a field notebook, practice site-based analysis, and produce a final portfolio of polished writing drawn from your observations on the road.
Explore the theological foundations of the movement. How did faith sustain activists, shape their rhetoric, and inform their strategies for nonviolent resistance?
Examine the social structures, community organizing, and systemic forces at work in the Civil Rights Movement and their continuing relevance today.
Professor of English and Writing and Chair of the English Department.
Professor of Applied Theology in the Logsdon School of Theology.
Associate Professor of Social Work and Chair of the Social Work and Sociology Department.
May 12–22, 2026. This is a May Term course. You'll depart from Abilene on May 12 and return no later than May 22.
Cost is to be determined. Check back here for updates soon.
We travel together by charter bus. All transportation during the trip is provided.
Check back for updates.
Follow our Instagram for updates before the trip and a live look at the experience once we're on the road. Use the hashtag to share and find posts from fellow travelers.
Spaces are limited to 30 students. Complete the application to be considered for enrollment permission. We're looking for students who are ready to engage seriously with difficult history, travel well with others, and commit to the full experience.
Start Your ApplicationApplications are reviewed on a rolling basis. You'll be notified of your status by email.
Scan to apply