During our first trip to visit my sister and her family since they made the seismic move from Calgary, Alberta to Birmingham, Alabama – which happened to be our first flight anywhere since the beginning of the pandemic – they arranged a Civil Rights tour for us. A friend of Michelle & Ken’s who once to served – if I remember correctly – as press secretary for Earl Hilliard, and now works at Alabama State University gave a us personal tour of Selma and Montgomery.
Our guide, Ken Mullinax, brought a beautiful one-of-a-kind signed collection of photos taken by legendary Civil Rights photographer James “Spider” Martin. We would arrive at a place of significance and he would take out “Spider’s” book and show us the photos taken at that very location.
Selma
To walk the bridge and get a tiny feel for where those freedom marchers would have been on the bridge when they first saw the waiting Alabama State Troopers and county possemen waiting for them with dogs, clubs, and tear gas defies description. As it turned out we walked across the bridge in Selma on the first anniversary of the death of the great senator, civil rights leader, and pastor John Lewis (July 17). We spent time at the Brown AME Chapel. He took us by the memorial for Viola Liuzzo at the spot where she died at the hands of the KKK. It was quite remarkable to me to see the flags of the confederate in Selma, especially when we toured its cemetery, where it maintains a memorial to the founder of the Klan. An unexpected bonus was some of the best BBQ pork I’ve ever had; Lannie’s Bar-B-Q Spot.
Montgomery
In Montgomery, we spent the morning at The National Memorial for Peace and Justice… so powerful… a whole bodied experience. Later we visited Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, formerly pastored by the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Then parsonage where he lived, and the home on the ASU campus where MLK and his family stayed after their parsonage was bombed. We even saw the recently closed barber shop where MLK used to go. Of course we went to the bus stop where Rosa Parks caught her bus and the place where it stop and she was arrested. We went to the Greyhound Station that was part of the Freedom Rides… and so much more.
Birmingham
Back in Birmingham we visited the 16th Street Baptist Church. This was the site of the 1963 bombing which killed four African American girls. Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, and Carole Robertson died on that day; and a fifth girl who had been with them, Sarah Collins (the younger sister of Addie Mae Collins), lost her right eye in the explosion, and several other people were injured. Four members of the Klan planned this bombing. This was the act that finally prompted the Federal government to take action on Civil Rights legislation. And we got to engage the emotionally charged sculptures in the Kelly Ingram Park. I was surprised to learn that the city of Birmingham didn’t exist until after the US’s Civil War; that was news to me.
While hearing some of the history of cruel acts and evil systems aimed at black bodies, I also heard remarkable stories, learned new names, and saw evidence of the beloved community acting on a dream because the arc of the moral universe may be long but it bends toward justice.
This was an amazing tour, I learned so much, and we have so much to do.
Peace, dwight
