OAKLAND —A group of 90 African-American women from the Bay Area and 30 more from Sacramento left Thursday morning on a trip to the southern United States.
They're planning to revisit key sites of the civil rights movement, including Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma in Alabama.
It's all part of an educational tour that, given the stories of racial intolerance that are dominating the headlines these days, has become a politically galvanizing journey as well.
The women are all members of Ladies In Red, a support and empowerment group founded in Oakland more than 20 years ago.
For Ladies In Red Founder Brenda Knight, the shift in the U.S. political climate means it's now more critical than ever to keep shining a spotlight on the inequities faced by African-Americans.
"You know the table is set. If you don't have a seat, bring a folding chair and take a seat," she said. "That's the way you should be feeling now, because if we don't have our own representation, representing who we are, representing how we feel, we're going to be left out of the decision-making process. We're already left out."
All of the women on the trip are older than 65. They say they're intimately familiar with the injustices that persist against people of color.
"Although time has changed, it really hasn't, " Knight said. "We are going back to the South where there're still problems. We're going back to the South where people are still having problems being able to have the right to vote."
Knight said members of the group are helping to right wrongs by reminding their grandchildren about what happened before, so they can take action to keep it from happening again.
"We've done it. We've been there. So it's our time now to encourage our younger generation," she said. "To be there for them, to mentor, to help them, to support them. Because if we don't, we die out."
