By Paula Scott

Dr. Todd Allen, vice-president for diversity affairs at Messiah University in Pennsylvania, appeared in Bluffton University’s Forum series on September 27 with a program titled “On the Road to Freedom: Moving the Race Conversation Forward.”

Allen was there, in part, to pitch a May 2023 travel opportunity for Bluffton students that includes a three-week, charter-bus tour of key civil rights destinations such as the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, the Whitney Plantation near New Orleans and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson.

Before the presentation, Allen told the Icon that he would explore how civil rights tourism can be “a vehicle for advancing conversations about race and justice and reconciliation.” Through The Common Ground Project he has led such tours for 21 years. “It’s a chance to engage this living history in a way that often isn’t done in our classrooms. It has great relevance for what we’re experiencing as a nation today.”

On stage in Yoder Recital Hall, Allen gave a virtual tour of relevant places and people. He showed impressive monuments as well as crumbling buildings, and introduced the audience to famous figures as well as individuals who were just children during desegregation. He painted a picture of the civil rights movement from the 1950s to the 2020s, from the lynching of Emmett Till to the killing of George Floyd, and provided touchpoints for reconnecting with today’s civil rights movement.

“I think about where we are. Where exactly is this moment we are in? How far have we come on issues of race, and how far do we still have to go?” asked Allen.

He showed a photo of a bullet-pierced historical marker at Graball Landing, where 14-year-old Emmett Till’s body was found in 1955 and noted that the feature film “Till” will be released in October 2022. He directed the audience to this and other media opportunities to learn about the civil rights movement, key figures and their teachings.

Allen has met many famous figures from the U.S. civil rights movement but reminded his audience that they were once ordinary people--like those who filled the hall--and were young adults and even in their early teens. “They didn’t set out to be on a postage stamp…. They were ordinary people who did extraordinary things.”

The university tour will give students the opportunity to meet several participants of the early civil rights movement: Rev. Carolyn McKinstry, an eyewitness to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing; Charles Person, the youngest participant of the original Freedom Ride; and Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendants of the namesakes of the famous court case Plessy v. Ferguson.

The tour is one optoin among cross-cultural experiences that are part of the university's Bluffton Blueprint.