This land is your land, this land is my land From the California to the New York island.

Although off key, I sang along to Woody Guthrie as we planned and packed for a trip traveling through six states to reach our final Minnesota destination.  The itinerary included a pilgrimage to Selma, Alabama, and Independence, Missouri. The three of us set off in late April:  Chuck in the driver’s seat, me as commentator and Abby, the scout, perched atop the cab.

We spent the first night at Tallahassee’s Big Oak RV Park named for a 400-year-old live oak.  I was fascinated with the sheer size of the oak: huge branches arched high above then stretched out before resting on the ground and taking root. Like the points of a compass, I paced out 30, 31, 32 giant steps to the canopy’s edge to get a sense of real estate one tree could claim.  It was colossal.  In the cool shade, children rode their bikes circling the massive trunk and wove in and around a rainbow of lawn chairs.  Listening to their laughter, I heard Dylan sing, “Try imaging a place where it’s always safe and warm. Come in, she said, I’ll give ya shelter from the storm.”

Every 100 miles or so, we saw spring unfold as though we clicked a spring replay button.  Spring’s beauty was evident in Selma, Alabama.  The air was redolent with redbud and dogwood trees that graced the once beautiful, but now crumbling, brick buildings. The sun was shining the morning we followed in the footsteps of the 600 civil-rights activist who marched for the right to vote. We stopped at the crest of the Edmund Pettus Bridge just as leaders John Lewis and Hosea Williams did on March 7, 1965. Chuck snapped a picture of me standing on the side as cars and trucks sped past. Bridge Over Troubled Watersplayed over and over in my head as I watched the quiet water. The river was also calm on Bloody Sunday in 1965, but the air on that Sunday churned with virulence and violence. To capture the enormity of the day, we visited the Brown Chapel Church, so instrumental in the struggle. It is a beautiful and stately structure of faith, yet, the white trim edging the windows and outlining the walls reminded me of a gingerbread church my mother once made.  After praying at the church, they sang “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn me Round”; then silently they marched two by two unharmed through the streets of Selma.  The marchers were stopped on the bridge by a wall of State troopers slapping Billy clubs in the palms of their hands and Troopers on horseback wearing gas masks. Spectators excited for a confrontation filled the street.  Holding their clubs at both ends, chest high, Sheriff Clark and his troopers pushed into the crowd.  Soon they rammed harder and harder.  Tear gas was thrown. Troopers on horseback rode into the crowd.  People were beaten.  For six blocks, through the streets of Selma, the troopers drove the peaceful marchers back to the steps of the Brown Chapel Church.

We Shall Overcome, We Shall Overcome, We Shall Overcome, some day.

From the historic town of Selma, we traveled through Mississippi and Arkansas on twisting, roller-coaster roads to Branson, Missouri.  We heard a Beach Boys’ tribute band and sang and clapped along to Barbara Ann, Do You Wanna Dance?And California Girls.  Once again, we were back in 1965, but a different world.

Then on to Independence, Missouri, to discover the thirty-third president’s beloved neighborhoods and to tour President Truman’s Presidential Library, the first to be created.  Among his major accomplishments was his advocacy for civil rights.  He is renowned for ending racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces.

I applauded the 1945 National School Lunch Act that President Truman established.  Through subsidies, school children, like so many I taught, were provided low-cost or free lunches.  No song came to mind when I toured his library and museum, but I learned he was a voracious reader.  “Not all readers are leaders, said President Truman, but all leaders are readers.