Day 72 - Bethel Baptist Church, Birmingham Sloss Furnaces, Civil Rights Museum, Vulcan Park

It is Sunday and many tourist sites are either closed or have limited hours. And tomorrow, Monday, even more places are closed. So we decided to do some touring today and just run errands tomorrow. We start out by driving to a famous civil rights site, the Bethel Baptist church. During the civil rights movement Fred Shuttlesworth was pastor of the church, and in these years the church was bombed 3 times. In fact, during the civil rights movement there were so many bombings that Birmingham took on the nickname Bombingham. Being Sunday the church was closed to tours so we just drove by.

Birmingham started off as an iron/steel production town, and the city has preserved one of the oldest industrial sites, the Sloss pig iron-producing blast furnaces. It is open today so we stopped by to check it out.

Lunch before the museum opens

The visitor center, roof and fountains fit in nicely with the industrial surroundings

View from the visitor center of covered area where pig iron was formed to blast furnaces in the distance

Throughout the site there are also iron art work pieces

Cool iron/cement art piece

What!

Photo of one of the blast furnaces 

Iron ore + limestone + coal is dropped down the top, and steam is blasted up from the bottom

As the rocks drop down through the 3800F steam a reaction takes place and molten iron ore accumulates in the bottom

A lot of metal pipes bringing steam to the furnaces and taking away gases

The molten iron pours out the bottom and into larger and then smaller troughs formed in the sand

The final smaller troughs look like piglets hence the term pig-iron

Boilers to produce the steam

More artwork

Excess water is cooled in fountains

Where in the world is Francesca :)

Lots of huge machinery to stroll by

Giant flywheels

And giant wrenches!

The Birmingham Civil Rights museum is open so heading there next. The museum has a very comprehensive series of exhibits showing the history of the civil rights movement. Below are snapshots of some of what we saw.

Students train for non-violence before a rally

Sit-ins

University professor and main tactician for non-violence in Nashville student movement

Freedom rider

Just outside of the museum is Kelly Ingram park. This site was home to many civil rights protests and to the infamous event in which student protesters were fired upon by water cannons (fire dept.) and attacked by police dogs. Also next to the park is the 16th Street Baptist Church where a bombing killed 4 young girls during Sunday school.

Statue commemorating the young girls killed at the 16th Street Baptist Church

MLK

16h Street Baptist Church across the street

Memorial to activists

Famous civil rights leaders

The day is young and we still have energy, so we head to Vulcan park where there is a huge statue of the Roman god Vulcan that overlooks the city. 

Vulcan is the god of the forge and metalworking, appropriate for the history of Birmingham

The sculptor was, of course, Italian!

The museum has interesting displays, like this one showing how pig-iron is made (iron-ore + limestome + coal)

View from the statue

Back into town we visit the south side, the hip part of town with vegetarian restaurants, breweries and cafe's. Fun statue in middle of this neighborhood of happy animals.