On July 16, 2022, student-athletes from the Big Ten, the ACC, and PAC-12 conferences visited Alabama State University to tour the Montgomery Interpretive Center for the Selma-to-Montgomery March. The trip was part of a commitment to supporting student-athletes through meaningful educational opportunities, including the area of social justice. 150 student-athletes and administrators from 15 institutions visited sites throughout Central Alabama in mid-July 2022. The trip was sponsored by the Atlantic Coast Conference, through its Committee for Racial and Social Justice.

Dr. Janice Franklin, Project Director for the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture, welcomed the students to the campus, while Cultural Heritage Manager, Bradly Pettway introduced the National Center staff.

Prior to watching a film on student involvement during the 1965 voting rights campaign, National Center historian Dr. Howard Robinson provided context for the exhibits. The Montgomery Interpretive Center exhibits focus on the two weeks of student voting rights demonstrations in Montgomery following Bloody Sunday in Selma on March 7, 1965. Robinson emphasized the role played by Alabama State University students and students from colleges around the nation who participated in demonstrations in the Montgomery phase of the 1965 Voting Rights Crusade. In viewing the exhibition, visiting student-athletes saw how student activism influenced the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In addition to visiting Alabama State University, the student-athletes toured several historic sites in Selma and Montgomery, including the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the Civil Rights Memorial Center, the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the Equal Justice Initiative’s (EJI) Legacy Museum, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Many of the visiting students, having participated in Black Lives Matter protests, plan to share their experiences from the trip upon returning to their respective schools.