VGCC Male Mentoring students take historical tour
Students in the Male Mentoring program at Vance-Granville Community College took a week-long trip in April that helped give them a better understanding of how the Civil Rights Movement changed American history. The students participating in the Martin Luther King Civil Rights Heritage Tour included Antwon Carter, Dennis Bullock, Darraile Downey, Devoan Durham, Curtis Jefferys and Jason Gill, all of Henderson, Brian Kilgore of Creedmoor, and Keith Thorpe of Oxford. They were accompanied by VGCC Male Mentoring Program coordinator Rufus Sales, Director of Counseling Daniel Alvarado and counselor Seletha Pherribo-Bumphus.
The bus trip, organized by the Asheville, Charlotte, Durham and Raleigh MLK Committees in collaboration with the North Carolina Martin Luther King Resource Center, took participants to museums, monuments and other landmarks in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, to retrace the steps of Dr. King and other civil rights heroes. Highlights included the sites of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The group visited Dr. King’s birthplace as well as churches where he preached and the site of his 1968 assassination, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, along with the adjacent International Civil Rights Museum. Another landmark was Tuskegee University, which tied into a book that the VGCC students were reading as part of the male mentoring program, “The Mis-Education of the Negro,” originally published in 1933 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson.
“This trip taught me a lot about the way people were treated in the 19th and 20th centuries, and it gave me a greater respect for the life that I have now, which was made possible because of others who paved the way for me,” said Keith Thorpe, a student in the College Transfer program at VGCC. “We learned not only about the famous people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, but also about the ‘foot soldiers’ who played a big part in history but who you don’t hear much about. I learned more of the details behind the people and events we always see on T.V.” Thorpe added that participating in the Male Mentoring program was making him both “a better student and a more responsible man.”
The VGCC Male Mentoring Program is designed to assist male students in acquiring the confidence, resources and skills needed to succeed academically and socially at the college. The program is open to any male student who attends VGCC, but the emphasis is on minority males in particular. Participating students receive support and guidance as they work to develop their own abilities, set goals and progress toward those goals. Students also hear from guest speakers and take part in extracurricular activities promoting leadership and community service. For more information on the male mentoring program, contact Rufus Sales at (252) 738-3205.
Above: Participants in the tour pose in front of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. The words engraved on the wall are from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s well-known paraphrase of Amos 5:24, “…until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” From left, keeling, are student Brian Kilgore, VGCC Director of Counseling Daniel Alvarado and student Jason Gill; from left, standing, are Male Mentoring coordinator Rufus Sales, students Devoan Durham, Keith Thorpe, Dennis Bullock, Curtis Jefferys, Darraile Downey, VGCC counselor Seletha Pherribo-Bumphus and student Antwon Carter.
