Richwoods Student Attends Civil Rights Pilgrimage
By: Maria Chandler WMBD/WYZZ TV
Updated: March 8, 2013
PEORIA - A Richwoods High School student is getting a living history lesson.
Lydia Amissah just got home from a civil rights pilgrimage in Alabama with Congressman Aaron Schock.
She was the only Richwoods student chosen to attend.
Lydia saw places that shaped history, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s home and parsonage.
She says the trip was surreal, and she even got to meet her hero, Ruby Bridges, the first black child to attend an all white elementary school in the south.
"The teacher was white and people standing outside saying all those hateful things to her were white, too, but not all white people are like that, not all black people are like that. You have to get to know the person, first. Then start making assumptions, you know what I mean? That's what I took from her, and just to forgive people too," says Amissah.
Amissah is in the National Honor Society and leads the gospel choir.
She plans to attend Loyola University in Chicago to study pre-med and become a pediatrician.
