Alabama - A History Tour

After we left Atlanta, Lisa and I headed toward Alabama. Heavy rains forced us to find a hotel sooner than expected, so we spent the afternoon watching the NFL playoff games. A heartbreak for my wife the Minnesotan.

Alabama afforded us the opportunity to dive deep into the History of the Civil Rights movement. We downloaded the audiobook of Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters and Pillar of Fire. It's a History of America in the King years 1955-1963 and 1963-65. As we drove into Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery, visiting the churches and locations of some of the key events of the Civil Rights movement - we had an audio tour of the history thanks to Branch's excellent, and Pulitzer Prize winning books.

What struck me so in revisiting this material, is the role of the Christian church in the movement to secure voting rights for Black people in the south. Churches both Black and White were deeply involved in this controversial struggle to secure basic rights for all American citizens. It may be hard for us to recall, but the period of 1898 (after the Supreme Court's Plessy vs Ferguson decision, in which they said that separate but equal was ok, this allowed segregation to expand in the south) until the Voting rights act of 1965 - Black people were not allowed to vote.

Charles Morton, in the photo above, was a young man in the early 1960's. We met him in Selma, where he should us the jars of cotton balls and jelly beans that were used as a voter registration test for Black people. When you went in to register to vote, if you were Black, the clerk asked you to tell him how many jelly beans were in the jar or how many cotton balls. You had to guess right, just looking at the jar. Of course, no one ever guessed right, so you failed. Mr. Morton spent some time with Lisa and I telling of his own participation in the March from Selma to Montgomery.

The last couple days have been a profound reminder of the witness of the Christian faith when we embrace the teachings of Jesus. I've been reading some of Martin Luther King's sermons, including "Loving your Enemies." King reminds us that it does not say, "Like your Enemies", which is sentimental, but Agape (the Greek word for Love) your enemies, which is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all people - even those whom you don't think deserve it. Hmmmm, that's powerful, whether you are facing a sheriff with a night stick in Alabama in 1965 or a bully in your 7th grade classroom.

In the Photos above, the statue of King outside of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, which was the center of organizing. Birmingham was the site of those brutal images of firehoses and dogs used against protesters. The red brick church of Dexter Ave Baptist church which was King's first church in Montgomery, AL. Mr Morton holding the jars, and a tribute to Civil Rights at the Southern Poverty Law Center designed by the same sculpture who designed the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC.