If you follow college athletics these days, you’re likely familiar with terms like NIL, transfer portal, conference realignment and television contract. You may not be as familiar with the Big Ten Conference’s “Big Life Series: Selma to Montgomery.”
But you should be.
The conference describes the Big Life Series as a “cornerstone initiative led by the Big Ten Equality Coalition that highlights the conference’s ongoing commitment to examine and search for answers to the racial, social, religious and cultural challenges faced by our country.”
In short, it is a remarkable and transformational educational opportunity that the Big Ten initiated last summer and continued July 14-16 with approximately 125 staff and student-athletes representing every conference institution, as well as the Big Ten office, three Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), the Rose Bowl and the Capital One Orange Bowl.
Badger student-athletes Gabby McCaa (volleyball), Kamari McGee (men’s basketball) and Drew Brown (men’s soccer) took part and were joined by Assistant Athletic Director for Diversity and Inclusion Dr. Danielle Pulliam and Senior Associate Athletic Director Justin Doherty.
The majority of participants flew into Atlanta and bused the two hours over to Montgomery, Alabama on Friday afternoon. That evening the group heard from the first of several captivating speakers: Sheyann Webb-Christburg. Webb-Christburg participated (at the age of 9) in the first Selma-to-Montgomery march on March 7, 1965. The event became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
The next morning the Big Life attendees bused from Montgomery to Selma, packed school supplies for local children and filed into Selma’s historic First Baptist Church to hear from Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr., local government official Warren “Billy” Young and lifelong civil rights activist Lynda Blackmon Lowery, who completed the 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery at the age of 15 in late March of 1965.
The Big Life group…
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