PCA Student Meets Vice President Harris at 2022 Civil Rights Pilgrimage

PCA junior Kennedy Patton is a member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center, a group that has the honor of working with Congresswoman Terri Sewell from Selma, Alabama and Congresswoman Baraba Lee representing California’s 13th Congressional District. In March, these students received the opportunity to participate in the Civil Rights Pilgrimage of 2022. This special event included meeting the first African American and Asian American female Vice President, Kamala Harris. They also enjoyed listening to Bryan Stevenson, the author of the book Just Mercy which is now a film starring Michael B. Jordan, speak. Admirably, Stevenson is the founder and Executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. As she listened to Stevenson, Patton recorded a story he shared, titling it Soil of Forgiveness according to the story’s theme of how telling the truth is the soil of forgiveness. The title feeds off of the idea of Bryan Stevenson’s quote: “It’s only when we tell the truth that we create the opportunity for the kind of beauty, the kind of justice that our society desperately needs.” Certainly, Patton learned a lot from Stevenson’s speech, and her recorded story can be found below.

“The Soil of Forgiveness”
(a story verbally told by Bryan Stevenson; documented by Kennedy Patton)

An African American woman went to collect soil from a tree, a former lynching site. She was alone, digging up the dirt, when a white man drove by in a pickup truck. Multiple times, he passed her until he noticed her nervousness. Abruptly, the man stopped driving, got out of his pickup truck, and came to her side. The frightened lady began to dig faster as he approached, but he asked her why she was digging up the soil. At first, she told him, “I am getting soil for my garden,” but when the white man became inquisitive, the lady gave him a piece of paper that described the lynching that had occurred here. She was collecting the dirt that had the blood, tears, and sweat of a former victim so that it could be honored and known at a museum. “Let me help you,” The man responded, and he got down on his knees to scoop up the dirt with his bare hands. The lady offered him a shovel, but he preferred to use his hands. As he was scooping up the dirt, the lady noticed the hot tears streaming down his face. She asked him what was wrong, and turning to her, the man explained how he thought his grandfather may have participated in the lynching of this person. The lady hugged him. Eventually, the white man asked if he could follow her to the museum, and the lady agreed. They drove off together as the man followed her in his pickup truck.

Thank you, Kennedy Patton, for always striving to make a difference in the world! PCA is proud to have such active student engagement in the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center.