City Colleges Student Leaders Reflect on Civil Rights Trip to Alabama

In early March 2025, 30 City Colleges students, staff, and faculty members boarded a plane for Birmingham, Alabama. Their itinerary in hand outlined several of the historic places they’d be visiting during their three-day trip, including 16^th Street Baptist Church, the Legacy Museum, the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But what the itinerary couldn’t outline is just how impactful this trip would be.

The trip took City Colleges student leaders, including several from the Timuel D. Black Jr. Scholarship & Fellowship (TBSF) program, along with Student Government Association members and student ambassadors, to various historic sites and civil rights memorials in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma.

The sites included a Birmingham church that was the center of a deadly 1963 bombing—the marks still visible on the outside of the church building. The students also visited museums that explained the history of enslaved people, the medical testing enslaved women were subjected to, and lynching. And notably, exactly 60 years after the tragic “Bloody Sunday” assault, they walked across the bridge where people were met with violence for marching for their right to vote. For many on the trip, standing in the very places they had only seen in history books brought up a range of emotions.

“This trip means everything to me because I am proud of my Blackness, the history of my people, and all the pain they endured for me,” shared Malcolm X College student Rose Stamps, a participant in the TBSF program. “I can never repay them, but I can live for them, tell their stories, and make sure they are not forgotten.”

“This trip felt like a pilgrimage to me,” explained Harold Washington College student and TBSF recipient Jaiku Neoj. “I have a deep appreciation for the history and the individuals who paved the way and made it possible for me to live as openly as I do and have the privileges that I do. It was an honor to be able to immerse myself in history and walk in history makers’ footsteps.”

Many students returned home ready to get to work leading and building change in their own communities. The day after returning home from the trip, Harry S Truman College student and participant in the TBSF program Laniya Fields attended Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Black Student Roundtable at City Hall.

“A lot of times, we go about our day to day without even realizing what was sacrificed for us,” said Jaiku “This trip reignited a fire in my and reaffirmed by commitment to my community.”

The TBSF program, including the trip to Alabama, is funded by the City Colleges of Chicago Foundation. Inspired by the late City Colleges professor Timuel Black’s lifelong commitment to equity and justice, the program’s goal is to support City Colleges students who are emerging community leaders as they complete their studies and hone their community change leadership skills.

The students were joined by Zenobia Johnson-Black, Timuel Black’s wife of nearly 40 years, Michelle Duster, a writing tutor at Wright College and the great granddaughter of Ida B. Wells, and Veronica Herrero, president of the City Colleges of Chicago Foundation.

View photos from the trip below.