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Tashara Travels: Free, Public Civil Rights Exhibit at LeTourneau University

"The Road to the Promised Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement" is a free, public exhibit at LeTourneau University that highlights the accomplishments of many key people engaged in the struggle for civil rights.

LONGVIEW, Texas — Just in time for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday and Black History Month, LeTourneau University is highlighting the efforts of many leaders of the civil rights movement. 

Mark Moland, an assistant professor of History and Political Science at LeTourneau University, said the exhibit is an essential part of society.

"[We] should be active in remembering the past," Moland said. "Not just knowing the basic details, but entering into that memory, reliving the experiences, so that we realize the greatness of standing in non-violence, to seek reconciliation, but also the depths that hate can take us."

"The Road to the Promised Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement" takes onlookers on a journey back in time, featuring photographs, facsimiles of landmark documents and quotations by the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others engaged in the struggle for civil rights.

Credit: KYTX CBS19

The title of the exhibit echoes some of the final words we would ever hear from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

King delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech in Memphis, Tennessee in support of striking black sanitation workers on April 3, 1968, just one day before he was assassinated. 

The final words of his speech read as follows:

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!"

Lining the walls of Longview Hall on the university’s main campus are 20 panels, surveying the civil rights movement from MLK’s emergence as a civil rights leader in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott of 1955 through the 1990s.

"What really struck home to me reading these panels was both courage and hatred because as we try to remember this, sometimes our memory gets hazy, because we just remember the high points," Moland said. "We can see the courage of Dr. King, Rosa Parks and the others who stood up in the face of oppression."  

According to a press release, the free exhibit will be open from Friday, Jan. 18, through Friday, March 1, 2019.

It's located at 2100 South Mobberly Avenue in Longview. Hours are from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and from 2 to 8 p.m. on Sundays.

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