In addition to the undergraduate Campolo Fellows weekly seminar: On Being Christian in the World, the annual Spring Break Justice Pilgrimage is one of the core educational and formative experiences the Campolo Center offers its students and community. The Pilgrimage is open to undergraduate, graduate, and seminary Campolo Fellows and friends, including alumni, pastors, parishioners, faculty, and staff.  

As a biblically and theologically trained Sociologist, the Rev. Dr. Tony Campolo taught that orthopraxis—the intersection of theory and practice—is essential for effective and faithful Christian work and witness. The idea that what one reads in a book and discusses in the classroom must be informed by and attuned to the socioeconomic and political realities in the world guided Dr. Campolo’s work and his legacy.

These immersive, spiritual, and educational experiences, like the Campolo Fellows and Friends Civil Rights Spring Break Pilgrimage of 2026, which began in Memphis, TN and extended throughout the Mississippi Delta and Black Belt of Alabama to Atlanta, GA, honor Tony’s legacy and pedagogical tradition while equipping students, faculty, pastors, and parishioners to be informed, historically and culturally competent, faithful, and effective leaders in the Church, the Academy, and Community.  

As Tony often said: "To be full of the Spirit is to have your heart broken by the things that break the heart of God." Whether we encounter the people, places, and events of the Civil Rights Era in the deep south or meet migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers on the US-Mexico border, these pilgrimages sensitize and remind us of the Imago Dei in all our neighbors and the ongoing Christian mission that requires work to dignify, humanize, and bring freedom to all of God’s children.