bryanjazz

Here are some photographs from the trip.

2,849.2 miles. Back in Chocolate City. What an awesome experience. More later. Already thinking about my route for next time. :-)

Closed. That's what I learned about the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute when I looked up their website. All of Birmingham's historical museums are closed on Mondays. In fact, I later learned that all of the black history museums all over the South are open 6 days a week. On the 7th day, Monday, they rest. [Let this post serve as a public service announcement for those who travel down here in the future.]

Since I was only going to be in Birmingham one day, I chose to go down to the museum anyway and see what I could make happen. I figured I could just charm a guard while he was working his beat, or perhaps one of the employees while she was working on her day off, and get my own private entry and tour. After hanging around the completely abandoned building for a while and talking to other tourists having the same experience, a local man (Duane I learned later) came by and informed me of the "Monday situation."

Well, Duane could not get me in the museum, but he was prepared, as I'm sure he had been for many tourists before me in the same situation, to show me around the historically black section of Birmingham, which contained not only the Institute, but also the Sixteenth Street baptist Church, the Alabama Jazz hall of Fame and others.

Duane's tour was very informative. He conveyed a sense of Birmingham's past..and current...struggle with race and race relations. I learned about the central role that this section of the city had played in Birmingham's civil rights movement, and of the movement and resistance that had taken place around establishing the area as an historic neighborhood. I was also educated about the struggles of the city's first black mayor, who, when he eventually began to enact policies and decision to benefit the black middle class, suddenly started to experience corruption charges that were never substantiated. It is stories like these that I always encounter when I'm in this region, and the tone and import with which they are delivered, that convey the deep legacy of racism and race relations in the South. (The targeting of high profile black political figures is strong is a constant theme here. cf) While observations about the declining significance of race provide insightful analyses about changes in socio-economic conditions affecting groups and classes of people on a national (and perhaps international) scale, they do not fully capture the lived experiences in the daily lives of people.

And it is a far from simple experience. An interesting relationship was also pointed out to me by the manager of one of the oldest black owned barber shops in the area. It seems that a former police officer who used to drive around town in a specific police cruiser (Black Cat 13(?), the photographs were on the wall) and beat up blacks, now gets his haircut in the shop and brings his grandson there. We did not discuss in depth the degree of truth and reconciliation that took place (versus the degree of planned photo ops for tourism), but the other thing that I am aware of in the South is that the relationship between blacks and whites is intimately intertwined. As abusive and lopsided in power as it has been, both peoples have lived together in the region for some 400+ years. The interdependence cannot be escaped.

Indeed, my thinking is that a full realization and acceptance of the interdependence of all humans to one another is the key out of so much conflict; be it blacks and whites in the South, or Palestinians and Israelis; be it between nations, or within families. A simple truth, but true nonetheless.

I enjoyed my time in Brimingham.

It's always nice being back home. Seeing family. Remembering roots. Thinking about what other possibilities may have developed from different choices, lives lived differently. Appreciating where one is. Having left the geographic location of birth/family long ago, and having since lived in various locations that have served as "home" in a different sense, I am always left to wonder -- as I'm sure are many who are similarly situated in this modern mobile world -- how and where I fit into this place, these people, both of whom I do choose to assign meaning and value. A part of me does wish to stay here and be a contribution. Yet there is also the world calling, a world which I want to explore/travel and to which I also want to be a contribution.

Yes, being home is always nice. At the very least, it refreshes a sense of self which I choose to carry with me elsewhere.

It's the skies. The big skies. I think that might be it. There is something that happens when you're driving on the highway that lets you know when you're in the American South. It feels different. I think the sky is bigger here. Of course, that is not the logical scientific explanation. It's the same sky that exists everywhere else. But the truth is we really don't live our lives logically, and our experiences are usually much broader than can be explained by science. The sky is bigger here.

Yesterday, I left Burns, TN en route to New Orleans. Along the way, I had the fortune of giving a lift to a good friend of mine to his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama. Did you know that Huntsville is the space rocket capital of America? I didn't. Their heyday was back in the Sputnik era, as these days we've transitioned to Space Shuttles and other geographical locations.

But to me the interesting thing about Huntsville, and indeed the really enjoyable part of driving down the highways on my trip, is how incredibly beautiful it is. There's something inspiring about driving along the interstate and seeing gorgeous mountains against the big sky, and cotton fields along the road. I would not have known they were cotton fields if my friend had not pointed them out to me. There's an experience we don't have when we grow up in cities, of seeing the origins of things...such as how cotton fields look before the bloom turns to the white cotton balls I'm more familiar with. I'll post photos when i arrive in New Orleans.