Day 71 - Montgomery to Birmingham

The campground has great reviews but nobody mentions that there is a diesel pump on the tent area that goes on for hours even in the middle of the night. We could hear it with all the windows closed. It is very annoying especially for those families that were staying around the campground all the day. Our campsite was 63 and 58. Maybe next time we will choose a location furthermost possible from this area.

Day 70 - Montgomery: Selma, Freedom Rides Museum

This morning it was raining like it has been the whole night. When we arrived to Selma it was still raining. It's 54 miles east of Montgomery. We were hoping to visit the National Voting Rights Museum, which is located before the Edmund Pettus Bridge, but it turns out that it is closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We should have checked the schedule.

We look at the memorial dedicated to the Bloody Sunday, one more lesson on the Civil Rights Movement and their struggles, but also victories. 

It was the year 1965 and the Civil Rights Movement activists were trying to upheld their constitutional right to vote. Jimmy Lee Jackson had been murdered by a state trooper. As a non violent protest, they organized to march from Selma to the state capitol Montgomery. On the first march, they hardly had time to leave town, when they were attacked by the state troopers and county posse men with billy clubs and tear gas. All this was televised and photographed, as 50 people ended up at the hospital. After public outcry, in 1965 the Voting Rights Act bill was passed.

We drove around Selma to check out the neighborhood. There were some beautiful  homes, but some were abandoned and some had been burned down. Some businesses were boarded up.

We drove back to Montgomery to visit the Freedom Rides Museum. We were lucky to get the chance to meet one of the freedom riders, Dr. Ernest "Rip" Patton. He was talking to a group of students from Massachusetts. 

His voice brought us back to a time where the rule of law had been abandoned. He talked about the Ku Klux Klan men and their compliance with the police, the Alabama government and the locals. 

After Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, which lasted 381 days, on November 13 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the district court's ruling, ruling that segregation on public buses and transportation was against the law.

To know the reason of the freedom rides, you just have to go to the bottom of the wiki page to the "Aftermath" chapter. There were bombing of churches, shooting on windows, harassing of  African American bus riders, and if that was not enough a black man, Willie Edwards was lynched by the KKK. People were terrorized and ended up riding again in the back of the bus, if not even bother riding at all... therefore the Freedom Rides.

The first Freedom Ride was organized on May 4, 1961, and left from Washington DC and ended in New Orleans, going through Montgomery, and all the states that were still using Jim crow travel laws. The riders were 13 activists, seven black and six whites, some were women. The strategy was to have one black person seat in the 'white only' section of the Greyhound and Trailways buses, to test the system. They knew they were going to get hurt, put in prison or even killed, so they wrote their wills and goodbye letters before leaving.

Afterwards there were more freedom rides as more riders joined the movement, including many young students from various universities, and especially from the Nashville, organized in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Dr. Patton belonged to this group, which had already succeeded in the desegregation the whole city of Nashville. Some of them were expelled and could not continue their studies in the same university. Some of them ended up in the worst prisons in chain gang to work on cotton fields. The condition in county or city jail were terrible, and their jailers found pleasure and put extra effort to make their lives miserable. 

Dr. Patton told us that they responded with songs and it sang some of them to us!

He told us the story of a girl, that went to help the victims of a bus bombing, with water and sponges. She was not put in jail because her parents told the police that she was 'touched' in the head, meaning that she was mentally disabled. She moved to Los Angeles after being ostracized by her community. She got involved with drugs for a while but now she is OK. This shows you how lives were affected and recovered with difficulties. 

Dr. Patton

Freedom Riders

After the talk, we went on a separate room where we listened to testimonials from other freedom riders.

Day 69 - Montgomery: Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, Alabama State Capitol, Dexter Parsonage Museum

I rang the bell and a lady opened the door. She gave me a long heartfelt hug. I felt so warm. This was my welcome to the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church. She proceeded to hug everyone.

This church holds the pulpit from where Reverend Martin Luther King Junior gave his most famous speeches starting at an age of 24 years old, during one of the most violent periods of this state history.

We were at the basement, where there are murals of Rev. King and other members of the church, activists in the Civil Rights Movements. There are also his office and pictures of all the pastors that have served in the church.

Afterwards we went upstairs to the church. Here the same lady had everyone singing songs and clapping their hands. We reviewed dates and titles of the Rev. King's speeches and then we recited passes. Mine was: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." 

Bill touching the pulpit

Afterwards we went back to the basement and we all held hands making a circle. We sang 'we shall overcome TODAY' swaying together. I had a hard time leaving this place. I was so happy. I was so overwhelmed with love and happiness, that I had a hard time holding back tears.

Outside we met two girls from Cullman, north of Birmingham. They were here for the weekend rodeos and one of them was part of the organization. We had heard on the news from the night before that they were going to have a parade for the rodeo.
There was hardly anyone on the streets to greet them, maybe because it was a working day, or no everyone likes rodeo. Nonetheless we stayed, waved and took some pictures.

Montgomery has such big boulevards and streets that it takes a while to cross them. It has the look of a Capitol with imposing buildings in marbles and granite, large squares and some high-risers. On the other end, you can't help noticing that some businesses near the capitol are closed, empty or even falling apart. Large building in bricks with windows boarded up are on sale for a fraction of the price. A restaurant with nice table and all furnished kitchen closed for business.
Later in the evening we drove to another area of town near the Alley and here there's more life with fancy restaurants, sport bars and pizzeria. In fact, we had probably our best vegan meals of our whole trip here in Montgomery Alabama!

We took the tour of the Capitol building just because... it's there and it's free.

We attempted to visit the Dr King's family home, but it was right before closing time. 

Day 68 - Montgomery: Union Station, Rosa Parks Museum, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Legacy Museum, Court Square Fountain

We started our tour of Montgomery by driving to the visitor center downtown. They were very helpful in giving us a map of the city and showing us the principle sites.  Our first impression of downtown Montgomery is of a city that at one time was very active. But now we see a lot of empty and for-sale buildings, and the streets are pretty quiet. Looking online it appears that the population has been slowly shrinking these past 10 years. Strange because there is a big Hyundai factory and air force base nearby. Maybe people have been moving to the outskirts. Here we found, though, some very special museums/monuments such as the Rosa Parks Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Legacy Museum, the Dexter Baptist Church, the Freedom Riders Museum and others.

Visitor center

Walk underground to the river front

Riverfront temporarily closed due to flooding, but the tunnel was neat :)

Good vegetarian lunch at the Mellow Mushroom restaurant

Court square fountain downtown

After walking around downtown our first visit is to the Rosa Parks museum. Very interesting museum with a neat audio/video demonstration that shows just what it was like when Rosa was getting on the bus, the discussion with the driver and then the arrest. It showed step by step what happened and how all the people around were reacting. Learning about the history of what happened next, the 1 year boycott, the courage of the African Americans, and how Martin Luther King Jr. came to be a leader, was really inspiring.

Entrance

Francesca by Rosa Parks statue in entrance

The audio/video experience with the life size bus

After the Rosa Parks museum we visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. This memorial recognizes the terrorism of racist lynching that took place from 1877 (when the Union soldiers left the south) for the next 100 years.

Statues in the first part of the monument

The main monument consists of hanging rectangular steel boxes with the name of the county and people hanged in that county. There are over 800 boxes and over 4000 names. It is a very powerful and emotional place.

You walk through the sculptures and then slowly the ground descends until you are walking under them and reach a long dark wall with a waterfall that flows on and off, commemorating the thousands of lynchings that were not documented.

To the side of the monument are the same sculptures, with duplicate county names and victim names. These memorials are here temporarily and are destined for counties that file a claim to have them displayed in the county itself. We heard that 70% of the counties have so far claimed a memorial.

In the past year over 300 more lynchings have been discovered by researchers. California has 2 documented black lynchings that took place in Kern county.

We left the memorial and headed back downtown to visit the Legacy Museum (photography not allowed). This museum follows the timeline of slavery, lynchings, the civil rights period to mass incarceration. There are various audio/visual displays that explain this history. In particular one area of the museum has recreated prison visitor windows. When you pick up the phone the image of the prisoner's face begins to speak, and then you hear about the prison conditions, the long sentences for minor crimes, etc...