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allianceforunderstanding

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the “transformational” AU trip, a spring break trip that explores the Civil Rights movement

Credit: Courtesy of Wenting Sun

After returning from her Alliance for Understanding trip during spring break, College sophomore Aaliyah Meacham decided to reach out to her best friend.

The two hadn’t spoken since Meacham found out her friend had voted for President Donald Trump.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the “transformational” AU trip. Sponsored by the Greenfield Intercultural Center, Penn Hillel and the African-American Resource Center, AU is a spring break trip that explores the Civil Rights movement and the relationship between the black and Jewish communities at that time. 

Meacham said her biggest takeaway from the experience was the importance of listening to and understanding the opinions of others. When she came back from the AU trip she reached out for the first time in four months to her friend who voted for Trump to have a discussion about her friend’s reasoning and opinions.

“Just to meet people and hear their stories and hear their struggle has made it easier to listen to people who might have a different ideology or be a part of a different political party,” Meacham said.

Valerie De Cruz, the director of the GIC, said that every year the AU takes 20 students on a five-day trip to see four southern cities instrumental in the civil rights movement: Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham and Atlanta. The group visits landmarks, museums and synagogues and speaks with people who had been involved in the civil rights movement. Although the trip focuses on the relationship between Jewish and black communities, all students are invited to apply.

“I consistently hear that [the AU] is transformational for students,” De Cruz said. “Alumni consistently tell me they remember this program years after, and that they have formed friendships that continue into their life after Penn.”

College senior Estee Ellis agreed with Meacham that the trip taught her “the most important thing to do is to listen to each other and try to understand each other better.”

She also discussed the importance of people branching out from the communities with which they directly identify and seeking to understand other groups. Ellis, an Orthodox Jew and active member of Penn Hillel, said that looking back at the relationship between the black and Jewish communities during the civil rights movement exposed both positive and disappointing moments.

“Something that was on my mind throughout the trip was the way that my own community, the Jewish community, can take lessons from the Civil Rights movement for today,” Ellis said.

2012 College graduate Angbeen Saleem, who went on the trip when she was a senior, acknowledged that the AU had a big effect on her life.

“I had never been to the South. I didn’t know much about it. It just really opened my eyes to all the work that’s been going on here,” she said.

Saleem moved to Montgomery, Ala. to work at the Southern Poverty Law Center after graduating.

“Sometimes we think it is all in the past, and it’s not,” Saleem said about the struggles of the civil rights movement. “It is very much present.”