When English teacher Daniela Buccilli next meets her class of 11th graders at Upper St. Clair High School, she will have more to discuss than the typical small talk about her summer. Buccilli and more than a dozen other teachers traveled through the South earlier this month to learn about the Civil Rights Movement in an educational trip called “Marching Down Freedom’s Road” organized by Classrooms Without Borders. The trip took the educators to Birmingham, Alabama, and the site of the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The teachers spoke to the Rev. Carolyn McKinstry who was a child when she survived the bombings by Ku Klux Klan members. The bombing killed four girls – ages 11 to 14. According to the FBI, the attack was in support of white supremacy and out of fear of the Black church that was a rallying space for the Civil Rights Movement.

Photo Credit: Classrooms Without Borders