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 at the University of Minnesota Duluth could've spent spring break doing what so many other college students do -- partying.

They had bigger goals. They wanted to learn more about the history of civil rights in America.

So 33 of them got on a bus and headed south through Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi with stops in Nashville, Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery, Jackson, Holmes County and Memphis.

"I am hopeful because I believe our generation has the capability to be the torch bearers and galvanizers like the leaders of the past, to keep this movement moving forward," Cheryl Reitan, one of the trip's leaders, writes in today's 

"Every day we were slapped in the face with stories of hate, violence and brutality. But we also were uplifted by accounts of incredible courage," Reitan writes.

NewsCut

Bob Collins

Author

A group of students at the University of Minnesota Duluth could've spent spring break doing what so many other college students do -- partying. They had bigger goals. They wanted to learn more about the history of civil rights in America.

A spring break for civil rights

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