bryanjazz

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.