COLUMBIA, Mo. — The Missouri men's basketball team roamed the museum, built on the same ground where enslaved Black people were kept in warehouses — and where American history was on full display.
Ahead of Tuesday's game against Auburn, Mizzou coach Cuonzo Martin took his Tigers an hour west to Montgomery, Ala., the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. It was what MU senior Jeremiah Tilmon said was an "awakening" experience, even bringing him to tears.
The team visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, along with The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. Both were built by the Equal Justice Initiative. The venues reflect on 19th-century America, remembering Black lynching victims, slavery, racial segregation and more.
It was an opportunity for education, Martin said, a key part of why he coaches and teaches young men.
"It's amazing how you sit back and talk to the guys after as players," Martin said. "There's things that they say, 'I didn't know that. I had no clue about that.' But it's American history. But they had no clue about it. They're taught American history in schools. That is a part of American history."
Martin said before the season, he told MU director of basketball operations Paul Rorvig to seek out these chances to allow his players life lessons. It's just another extension of Martin's teachings, especially after the past summer.
Even when the pandemic forced the Tigers online, Martin still brought in guest speakers to talk with his players. They had discussions. There was an open conversation with his players. And that was during a time when the U.S. began grappling anew with a racial reckoning, denouncing police brutality against Black people and social injustice.
No longer are protests blazing across the U.S. daily, dominating headlines and the national conscience. But even as the dialogue has quieted, the education and struggle continues.
"It was really tough for me walking through there," Martin said. "Oftentimes, when you come from areas like me — I come from East St. Louis, you get information from your grandparents and it's passed down from what they experienced or moving from the South to the Midwest, wherever you come from ... So you hear about it.
"Then as you get older, I've never experienced any of that. I've had snippets in certain locations. Just to go in the facility, everybody was speechless. Normally after those events, we'll get together as a team and I say guys, what do you think about this. I had nothing in me to speak about it just because life can't be hard for me."
Martin said he's grateful to be in his current position because his ancestors "made a lot of sacrifices, lost lives for me to be sitting in this position right now today." Never has he taken that for granted, he said.
There was a phrase that resonated with Martin he took from the walls of the museum: "A presumption of guilt has been assigned to the Black people."
"In most cases, always guilty until proven innocent," Martin said. "Even if proven innocent, ah, still do a little time. Can you imagine living life like that? Your whole life? Can you imagine you're on a plantation and they take your child away from you and you never see that child again?
"Each one of you guys, if you guys have families right now, you have children right now. I'm coming to take your child right now and you'll never see him or her again. That's pain. I gotta live with that. I'm scarred for the rest of my life. I got to live with that. I got to get up at 5 in the morning and go to work until dusk to dawn.
"That's real pain. And I got that every day until they put me in a casket. And the best chance I got to survive is to run because maybe death is probably a little bit better. That's pain. That's every day."
Martin continued about what the visit was like and what his team saw. The Tigers had extra time on the road allowing for the experience. Instead of returning to Columbia, they took a bus directly from Knoxville, Tenn., to Auburn.
"Just some of the horrific things, like you see a 12-year-old kid who's in solitary confinement who has to spend the rest of life in a cell with no windows," Martin said. "Maybe an hour of daylight for the rest of his life. For a young man who's 15 years old put into prison with adult men. But I don't want to be graphic here, but raped and brutalized for years.
"Then you find out what was the crime? That was the crime? And that's consistent. Then you talk about all the lives that were lost and we never found out about. Or you even talk about the hangings on public display like it's we're in a part of downtown, let's go look at the lightshow. Then that's a postcard that's sent all around the country. And that's normal. That's tough.
"Then we gotta find another way so let's build these prisons up. Let's turn these prisons into an $80 billion industry. That's another way to shift it."
Martin said he believes these kinds of trips are vital in not just the college experience, but life. He said college should be an "uncomfortable education," where adversity and hardships allow his players to grow.
There's a certain kind of parental relationship, too, where Martin said he loves his players but he doesn't like them when they do stuff like miss class. But a college degree should come with real life experience, he said, not just what his players learn in class and on the court.
"Probably 70% of athletes — and I'll say from all walks of life, all colors — are not prepared when they leave college," Martin said. "And I just got a degree, I just walked across the stage. I want that life education. That's why I try to prepare guys for that life. It's going to be uncomfortable, sometimes painful. Tomorrow is not guaranteed."
Martin offered perspective when he was asked how he balances teaching those life lessons to winning basketball games, the latter of which is how he'll be ultimately judged at Mizzou. He said he doesn't worry about the results or him losing a job.
Of course, Martin's still a competitor, but he added "I'm winning the game" because of what God blessed him with: his family and his health.
The fourth-year Mizzou coach was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma when he was 26. He didn't think he was going to make it then. Martin celebrated his 49th birthday before the season started, one year from becoming what he described as a "king." He was born in East St. Louis, where he's seen humble beginnings. "God trained me with less, so I know how to survive," he said.
"This universe is going to be in here when I'm dead and gone," Martin said. "But I'm going to live a heavenly life while I'm on this Earth. I'm not waiting to get to heaven to live in heaven. I'm living it right now. That might not look like it because I have a scowl all the time, but I'm enjoying life. Best believe that."
