Karen Curls, a criminal-justice professor, felt a powerful connection to history when she visited the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., where a horrific terrorist attack happened in 1963.

In that moment, she knew she had to find a way to ground history in a similar way for the students back in her classroom.

Now, Curls and her colleague, Lyle Gibson, have led “The Pilgrimage,” a powerful journey through black history, for 22 years.

“We have a responsibility to teach them how this construct of racial segregation was put together, and why this construct was put together,” Gibson says.