Saturday, December 15, 2012

WSSU fans take in Alabama history, gear up for game


FLORENCE, ALA. --  Cheryl Johnson and Rosyln Moffitt, alumnae of Winston-Salem State University, wanted to show their group of nine other WSSU alumni and students some of the history of the civil-rights movement as they drove Friday to Florence, Ala.
The group is among a large contingent of WSSU fans who traveled from North Carolina and the Southeast to attend the NCAA Division II National Championship football between Winston-Salem State and Valdosta State.
Johnson and Moffitt, both 1978 graduates of WSSU, decided to stop in Birmingham, Ala., and visit the 16th Street Baptist Church where four black girls were killed in a racially motivated bombing there in September 1963. Historians say that incident helped galvanize public support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

“We wanted to give the young men a sense of history,” Moffitt said.

The group then returned to the van and completed the 545-mile trek to Florence. For most of them, it was their first trip to Alabama. Johnson, a native of Winston-Salem, and Moffitt, a native of Raleigh, both live in Charlotte.

The group is staying at ...

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