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America is deeply divided. Tensions exist within and between many of our communities, and we are finding it increasingly harder to listen to those on the other side of the aisle—whether that aisle is political, racial, economic, or religious. We believe that the story most of us have become to know about ourselves, our communities, and our nation are incomplete. This American Pilgrimage explores how the seeds of our division were sown at the founding of our nation.
We need a more complete story.
The ReStoryUS team will guide you through an experience that brings you to our past, to help to understand our present, in order to know how to engage in the work of repair for a better tomorrow.
Yvonne Therese Holden is the Director of U.S. Programming for Telos and ReStoryUS. Her previous position was at Whitney Institute, the non-profit that runs Whitney Plantation Museum- a historic site that educates the public about the history and legacies of slavery. There she served as the Director of Visitor Experience & Operations.
In these roles, Yvonne has had the privilege of creating programming that focuses on building experiences that provide opportunities to facilitate deeper learning through dialogue about histories that are often challenging but offer insight into our present moment.
She currently serves as a board member for Turning Table’s Nola, a non-profit that offers workforce training to individuals interested in pursuing a career in hospitality. She also frequently partners, advises, and presents on panels for institutions, such as, the National Museum of African American Culture, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the National Council on Public History.
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Please schedule your flight to arrive to New Orleans (MSY) by 7pm.
Check-in to the Hyatt-Centric Hotel in the French Quarter. We will all meet in lobby before dinner and head out as a group.
We believe that it is time for a new story to emerge in this country. One that unifies our understanding of who we are. A story that incorporates our nations past triumphs, as well as its failures, so that each of us may engage the work of repair to build a hopeful and better tomorrow. It's time to ReStoryUS.
In this orientation, you will be presented a history that weaves together the pieces of our collective past which will provide the ground work for this journey.
We will visit the Whitney Plantation, which is one of the few plantation site that tells the story of the place centering the perspectives of the people who were enslaved there.
We will visit a not-for-profit organization that creates and supports programs, activities, and creative works emphasizing the contributions of people of African descent in New Orleans.
Jerome Morgan, Robert Jones, and Daniel Rideau developed plans for Free-Dem Foundations while they were incarcerated in the Louisiana State Prison at Angola. At a time when it seemed certain that the three of them had no chance of freedom and would all die in prison, they resolved that if they were freed they would reunite as free men and work together to help build community cohesion and self-sufficiency in the neighborhoods where they were raised, and provide special help to the young men living there to escape the snares of mass incarceration.
With assistance from social justice organizations Jones and Morgan proved that they had been wrongfully convicted and were freed after Jones spent twenty-three and a half years and Morgan spent twenty years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Rideau was released after serving nine years when evidence revealed irregularities in his sentencing. After release, they set up a barber shop and mentoring program that enrolled then twenty year-old Samson Price as their first apprentice.
Vera is fighting to end mass incarceration.
Founded in 1961 to advocate for alternatives to money bail in New York City, Vera is now a national organization that partners with impacted communities and government leaders for change. With offices in four major cities, and a team of hundreds of advocates, researchers, and policy experts, we work to transform the criminal legal and immigration system so that money doesn’t determine freedom; fewer people are incarcerated; and everyone behind bars is treated with dignity.
To end the overcriminalization and mass incarceration of people of color, immigrants, and people experiencing poverty.
Safe, healthy, empowered communities and a fair, accountable justice system.
Immigrants in the United States are not entitled to an attorney in their removal proceedings. Instead, if they cannot afford an attorney, they are forced to present their legal cases before an immigration judge on their own. This typically takes place in a foreign language, and against a trained attorney representing the government. In an attempt to even the playing field, ISLA attorneys visit detained immigrants at the eleven ICE Processing Centers in the region on a weekly basis and provide pro bono representation under a universal representation model before the Immigration Courts. Through this service, ISLA ensures that detained immigrants' due process rights are protected and that our clients do not have to attend these hearings and present their cases on their own.
“Jackie, in your letter you asked me: “What sort of house does a man who has lived in a 6’ x 9’ cell for over 30-years dream of?!”— In the front of the house I have 3-squares of gardens. The gardens are the easiest for me to imagine, and I can see they would be certain to be full of gardenias, carnations and tulips. This is of the utmost importance. I would like for guests to be able to smile and walk through flowers all year long.”
-- Herman Wallace, excerpt from a letter to jackie sumell, February 1, 2006
jackie sumell’s most celebrated project, Herman’s House, resulted from an incredible 12-year collaboration with political prisoner Herman Wallace. Herman spent over decades in solitary confinement in the State of Louisiana, for a crime he could not have possibly committed. In his 29th year of isolation, while a graduate student at Stanford University, she began writing him, eventually asking: “What kind of house does a man who has lived in a six-foot-by-nine-foot box for almost thirty years dream of?” This question launched our collaborative project, The House That Herman Built (Herman’s House), an ongoing exhibition, installation, book, advocacy campaign, and Emmy Award-winning documentary (Best Artistic Documentary, 2013). After spending over 41 years in a 6’ x9’ cage, Herman’s conviction was overturned and he was released from prison on October 1, 2013. He died 3-days later from the complications of advanced liver cancer. Fueled by the desire to keep Herman’s legacy alive, The Solitary Gardens, turns solitary confinement cells into garden beds that are the same size and blue-print as the cell Herman, and so many others spend decades in. The contents (plants, flowers and herbs) of the prison-cell-turned-garden-bed are designed by prisoners serving their sentences in isolation through proxies on the outside. Central to this project is a call to end the inhumane conditions of solitary confinement, simultaneously inspiring compassion necessary to dismantle systems of punishment and control.
Their mission is to:
-Preserve and foster respect for New Orleans’ indigenous traditions and historic places through cultural and educational programming.
-Undertake, support and promote research on Congo Square’s history and significance in the cultural and economic development of New Orleans and the world.
-Promote public awareness of Congo Square’s history and significance as well as vanguard its depiction in all print and electronic media.
-Ensure that the economic development of Congo Square results in the betterment of local African-American communities.
-Provide Congo Square Living Classroom field trips to children & schools.
-Serve as a voice of consensus regarding all aspects of Congo Square on the input and direction of our local, national and international membership.
Reconcile New Orleans transforms the lives of young adults and the community through the ministry of reconciliation.
We do this by encouraging personal growth, providing workforce development and training, promoting entrepreneurship, working with businesses, nonprofits and people of faith to support this transformation, and building strong communities through community economic development.
We will visit the museum and experience it through meeting with a member of staff and a self-guided tour.
“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Medgar and Myrlie Evers exemplify civil rights organizing that combined grassroots strategies with efforts of national organizations to change laws and policies. The Evers established the NAACP office in Jackson, Mississippi in the mid-1950s. Medgar took part in both legal challenges and direct action campaigns. He tirelessly led marches, prayer vigils, voter registration drives and boycotts, and persistently appealed to blacks and whites to work together for a peaceful solution to social problems.
On June 11, 1963, President John F. Kennedy spoke to the nation in a televised address from the Oval Office. “The Report to the American People on Civil Rights” called on all Americans to reject the idea of the inequality of races by asking Congress to enact legislation addressing the long-delayed implementation of the Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation decision. “It ought to be possible…for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or color,” Kennedy said.
Medgar had called from the office that day, encouraging Myrlie to watch the address. He would not be home to watch it with her and their children. It was another late night of organizing and attending meetings. His role as secretary for the Mississippi NAACP field office kept him endlessly busy.
Medgar returned home just after midnight. Myrlie and the children had waited up and were watching TV together. They heard Medgar’s car in the driveway. Then they heard a shot.
Given his public role in Mississippi civil rights, Medgar had anticipated, even expected an early death. But the nation was shocked. His murder galvanized the civil rights movement and heightened public awareness of civil rights issues. As a martyr, Medgar became a catalyst for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation in private businesses.
We will meet with community leaders and activists in Jackson, MS to learn from them and their stories.
We will participate in a Kingian nonviolence training with the Executive Director, Ainka Jackson, and her staff.
Mission:
The mission of the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, & Reconciliation is to partner with institutions to promote love, the establishment of justice, and build the Beloved Community. The Center is committed to transforming and healing the root causes of physical, political, psychological, environmental, economic and racial violence at personal, family, community and systemic levels.
Vision:
We envision a transformed community where justice prevails, and people are equipped to fulfill their full human potential and creates equity by the systemic barriers to growth and development.
Joanne Bland is a Selma native who participated in the civil rights movement as a freedom rider. We will have the opportunity to hear about her experiences in Selma and engage in conversation about her work.
"I offer first-hand personal accounts of the history of Selma's involvement in the Voting Rights Struggle. I was born and raised in Selma and became a participant at eight when I was arrested for the first time along with my grandmother as she attempted to register to vote.
Alabama was the front line for both sides of a struggle that came to define post-war America. No visit to this historic state would be complete without due regard to the people who risked everything to overcome its institutionalized injustice."
- Joanne Bland
The Edmond Pettus Bridge is the place where "Bloody Sunday" happened on March 7, 1965.
The Legacy Museum provides a comprehensive history of the United States with a focus on the legacy of slavery. From the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its impact on the North and coastal communities across America through the Domestic Slave Trade and Reconstruction, the museum provides detailed interactive content and compelling narratives. Lynching, codified racial segregation, and the emergence of over-incarceration in the 20th century are examined in depth and brought to life through film, images, and first-person narratives.
The Memorial for Peace and Justice was conceived with the hope of creating a sober, meaningful site where people can gather and reflect on America’s history of racial inequality. EJI partnered with artists like Kwame Akoto-Bamfo whose sculpture on slavery confronts visitors when they first enter the memorial. EJI then leads visitors on a journey from slavery, through lynching and racial terror, with text, narrative, and monuments to the lynching victims in America. In the center of the site, visitors will encounter a memorial square, built in collaboration with MASS Design Group. The memorial experience continues through the civil rights era made visible with a sculpture by Dana King dedicated to the women who sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Finally, the memorial journey ends with contemporary issues of police violence and racially biased criminal justice expressed in a final work created by Hank Willis Thomas. The memorial displays writing from Toni Morrison and Elizabeth Alexander, words from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and a reflection space in honor of Ida B. Wells.
We will spend our final hours meeting with Michelle Browder to hear about her work creating the Mother's of Gynecology Monument.
After which, we will wrap up over journey over lunch and conversation.
Please schedule return flights after 5pm from Montgomery Regional Airport (MGM), or later if from other airports to allow plenty of time after the final session.
(Atlanta and Birmingham are both approximately a 2 hours drive from Montgomery.)
This price is per person for those who are traveling with a roommate. Please email Frances Crane ([email protected]) with your desired roommate's name.
You can also let her know if you do not have a roommate, but would like to know if there are others on the trip who would like to room with you. If you are ultimately unable to find a roommate either on your own or with Telos' help, however, you will need to pay the full single occupancy price.
INCLUDED: All-inclusive of hotels, meals, beverages, gratuities, ground transportation, admissions, and honoraria.
Pricing is per-person based on a minimum of 20 participants.
DIETARY REQUIREMENTS:
So that we may work to accommodate any dietary restrictions, please be sure to fill out the pre-trip survey in the "Tasks" section of this website as soon as possible after you pay your deposit to give our team sufficient time to accommodate your needs.
NOT INCLUDED:
Flights: You will need to book your own flights. Please book flights arriving at Louis Armstrong New Orleans Airport (MSY) by noon on October 14, 2023 and departing from Montgomery Regional Airport (MGM) at 5PM or later on October 21, 2023.
Insurance: We strongly recommend purchasing travel insurance to cover delays.
Incidentals: Any incidentals charged to rooms will be invoiced to you at the end of the trip.
HOW TO REGISTER/BOOK:
Click the button in the footer below to register for the tour by July 1, 2023. A deposit of $750.00 is due at the time of registration to guarantee your spot on the trip.
CANCELLATION POLICY: REFUNDS
CANCELLATION BY TELOS:
In the chance that our travel plans are disrupted by conditions out of our control, including but not limited to dangerous weather conditions, Telos will refund all trip payments in full. However, in the case of cancellation by the participant before an official announcement is sent by Telos staff, the below terms will apply. (Emergency exceptions are granted on a case-by-case basis.)
CANCELLATION BY PARTICIPANTS:
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Annual plans also available
Across the U.S. South 