“To be honest, I didn’t know the Freedom Riders existed,” said Tegi Jenkins, an 18-year-old nursing major at the University of Southern Mississippi. Now, she can tell you all about them.
Tegi, a nursing student at the University of Southern Mississippi, experienced a firsthand account of the Freedom Riders’ noncompliance. As a result of a $10,000 grant from the Foundation for the Mid South, the Mississippi Museum of Art was able accept and train student volunteers as docents for the Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders exhibition.
The grant was used to educate students about the Freedom Riders and their contribution to the Civil Rights Movement. The grant was also used to share knowledge of the Civil Rights movement with hundreds of other students and teachers throughout the region.
Tegi was inspired to become a tour guide for the exhibit and spent her days leading patrons through the museum, explaining the mission, setbacks and determination of the Freedom Riders. She gave two tours her very first day, walking the groups through the turmoil of the 1960s and at the end taking their pictures in Freedom Rider, mugshot fashion.
Days before, she saw a Freedom Rider documentary on PBS, but there’s nothing like living history. She said that she’s come to appreciate the opportunities she has today.
“You learn about how Civil Rights has been going on for so long and what happened, but to actually be a part of it… I go to a historically white school and without this and Civil Rights I wouldn’t be there.” She considers her involvement in the exhibit to be a blessing.
As a docent, she had to learn the history in order to effectively tell the story. “It’s just amazing,” she said about explaining the importance and impact of the Freedom Riders to someone who had never heard of them before. “Well, I’ll tell you what I told my sisters: ‘You are blessed and you take everything for granted.’”
But it’s not just the younger generation that benefits from this work. Although the grant was designed to give students an opportunity to participate in afterschool learning and deepen their understanding of civil rights history, teachers as well as parents took active roles.
The grant allowed the Museum’s education staff to conduct a Breach of Peace teacher workshop in partnership with Parents for Public Schools of Greater Jackson. The result was an educational video, accessible for teachers across the region.
“I feel like everyone should know about this and should know where we come from and how far we’re going,” said Tegi. “I don’t think kids really understand what people had to go through so we could do the stuff that we do today.”
According to her, better education is how we help them to understand.
“You have your history classes, but that’s only on war,” she said. “You really don’t get into civil rights, and I think that’s what’s most important.”