Day 96 (September 26): Gratitude and Dignity in Montgomery Alabama
Sorry, folks, nothing clever or witty in this one.
We are in Montgomery, Alabama. When we planned this itinerary with a primary focus on visiting national parks, we decided we would visit key sites in the civil rights movement. Then, in April 2018, we learned about the opening of the Legacy Museum by the Equal Justice Initiative and it became clear that Montgomery would be an immutable destination. Now we are here.
To prepare, I bought three books that have been incredibly valuable.
1. The Civil Rights Movement for Kids by Mary C. Truck. The book provides descriptions of key characters, settings and moments in a way that is neither cartoonish or encyclopedic. We have found that we can read this to the kids, unabridged, and hold their attention. The book includes activities to help the kids engage with the material in a practical way. It also supports our strategy, which is helping the kids relate to specific individuals, from MLK and Rosa Parks to Emmitt Till, Barbara Johns and Ruby Bridges.
2. A Traveler's Guide to the Civil Rights Movement by Jim Carrier. You could set your odometer to this one. In each state, in each city, it tells you what you can see and why it's important. It has greatly enabled me to figure out how to select from the many to pick the few that our tribe can digest in a day or a week.
3. On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail by Charles E. Cobb, Jr. I would recommend this to the adult who wants to learn more than they did in school, especially to get a more human-level view of major events; the book is filled with anecdotes and excerpts conducted by the author.
We arrived in Montgomery on Tuesday afternoon after a half-day drive from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where we had spent the night in an RV park on the site of a civil war battle. There were more than a few confederate flags aloft in the campground and the "streets" were named for confederate generals.
On Wednesday morning, we read a bit about the Montgomery bus boycotts from Mary Truck's book. It allowed us to introduce Rosa Parks and the concept of a boycott. Before we left the hotel, we emphasized a word of the day: gratitude. Gratitude for service and sacrifice. Gratitude for the risks that the movement-makers took.
We booked a tour with Jake Williams, owner of Montgomery Tours and a veteran of the civil rights movement (and the Navy). We walked to the riverfront through a tunnel that was used to march slaves, in chains, from boats to the warehouses and auctions in Montgomery. We stood on the spot where Rosa Parks boarded the bus and the spot, two blocks away, where she was arrested. We drove by the churches where the meetings were held, where freedom riders sought refuge and where the KKK laid siege to them until MLK reached the President, who federalized the National Guard to do the job local police wouldn't. We drove by the mansion that was the Confederal White House and the building from which Jefferson Davis sent the telegram that started the Civil War. We paused at the steps of the Capitol near which (but not on which, per order of the Governor) MLK and others addressed the Selma-Montgomery marchers from the back of a flatbed truck. Above all, we had the privilege to listen to Mr. Williams' stories and perspective. We heard the stories from a person who had walked and stood there. That was 90 minutes.
On Thursday, we switched from "gratitude" to "dignity" in order to tackle the subject of lynching. To the older kids I mentioned the sixth amendment (right to due process). They listen to Hamilton nonstop and I thought they might relate to the Constitution a little bit (probably not). We read about Emmitt Till (again, from Truck's excellent book) and tried to explain lynching. Then we walked to the Legacy Museum.
This is a two part experience, which I had read about but didn't comprehend. The only experience to which I can compare this is visiting the Holocaust Museum.
Observation #1: I needed more time. If we (adults) had been there without kids, I think we might have spent two hours in the museum. The multimedia exhibits (this is a link to EJI's youtube channel, which has 100+ pieces available) are extraordinary and you should have enough time to experience each element and then digest it before moving on to the next.
Observation #2: The people who created this are geniuses. For me, the most powerful part is that it ends with questions. I showed these to Lily, these words in seething orange against a background of white and black. We modified the conveyor-belt metaphor of racism to a river and told Lily and Henry: there is passive racism (carried by the current); there is active racism (working in the direction of the current) and there is the opposite: paddling upstream. I saw in the questions posed by the museum a way to penetrate this paradigm. I think many of "us" (I identify with many categories of privilege, especially being white) don't know how to comprehend the entirety of racism, our part in it and how to change ourselves. [Ed: I've written and re-written the next sentence until I've given up and settled on the following.] These questions are a meaningful starting point.
Observation #3: You can (and should) go from the museum to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. As with the Holocaust Museum, you necessarily confront the duality of an atrocity: on one hand, the scale is incomprehensible. There are numbers but they are beside the point. The memorial represents what one "people" did to another "people." On the other hand, there are individuals, in this case with their names inscribed on monoliths representing the county in which they were murdered. The memorial also represents what persons did to persons. [Ed: comparing things to the Holocaust is treacherous; my intention is to compare my experience visiting the Holocaust Museum with my experience visiting the Legacy Museum and Memorial.]
Observation #4: Lily "got" it today, which didn't surprise me. What caught me off guard was Cate, who is a Deep Feeler, crying at many parts of the museum and the memorial. I can't imagine that this barely-six year old really gets it but something in her really did. I've found that Big Experiences tend to surface later with these kids and I wonder how this is going to pop up again days, weeks, or months from now.
Observation #5: Please go. I don't know whether you are paddling against the current of the Racism River, floating with the current or rushing downstream. It was clear to Elise and to me that it was Important to visit here. Although I've consumed the stories of Montgomery my whole life, there is nothing like actually being here, walking through the tunnel where slaves were dragged, standing near the site of the public auctions, eating in restaurants that used to be warehouses for human chattel.
We are in Montgomery, Alabama. When we planned this itinerary with a primary focus on visiting national parks, we decided we would visit key sites in the civil rights movement. Then, in April 2018, we learned about the opening of the Legacy Museum by the Equal Justice Initiative and it became clear that Montgomery would be an immutable destination. Now we are here.
To prepare, I bought three books that have been incredibly valuable.
1. The Civil Rights Movement for Kids by Mary C. Truck. The book provides descriptions of key characters, settings and moments in a way that is neither cartoonish or encyclopedic. We have found that we can read this to the kids, unabridged, and hold their attention. The book includes activities to help the kids engage with the material in a practical way. It also supports our strategy, which is helping the kids relate to specific individuals, from MLK and Rosa Parks to Emmitt Till, Barbara Johns and Ruby Bridges.
2. A Traveler's Guide to the Civil Rights Movement by Jim Carrier. You could set your odometer to this one. In each state, in each city, it tells you what you can see and why it's important. It has greatly enabled me to figure out how to select from the many to pick the few that our tribe can digest in a day or a week.
3. On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail by Charles E. Cobb, Jr. I would recommend this to the adult who wants to learn more than they did in school, especially to get a more human-level view of major events; the book is filled with anecdotes and excerpts conducted by the author.
We arrived in Montgomery on Tuesday afternoon after a half-day drive from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where we had spent the night in an RV park on the site of a civil war battle. There were more than a few confederate flags aloft in the campground and the "streets" were named for confederate generals.
On Wednesday morning, we read a bit about the Montgomery bus boycotts from Mary Truck's book. It allowed us to introduce Rosa Parks and the concept of a boycott. Before we left the hotel, we emphasized a word of the day: gratitude. Gratitude for service and sacrifice. Gratitude for the risks that the movement-makers took.
We booked a tour with Jake Williams, owner of Montgomery Tours and a veteran of the civil rights movement (and the Navy). We walked to the riverfront through a tunnel that was used to march slaves, in chains, from boats to the warehouses and auctions in Montgomery. We stood on the spot where Rosa Parks boarded the bus and the spot, two blocks away, where she was arrested. We drove by the churches where the meetings were held, where freedom riders sought refuge and where the KKK laid siege to them until MLK reached the President, who federalized the National Guard to do the job local police wouldn't. We drove by the mansion that was the Confederal White House and the building from which Jefferson Davis sent the telegram that started the Civil War. We paused at the steps of the Capitol near which (but not on which, per order of the Governor) MLK and others addressed the Selma-Montgomery marchers from the back of a flatbed truck. Above all, we had the privilege to listen to Mr. Williams' stories and perspective. We heard the stories from a person who had walked and stood there. That was 90 minutes.
On Thursday, we switched from "gratitude" to "dignity" in order to tackle the subject of lynching. To the older kids I mentioned the sixth amendment (right to due process). They listen to Hamilton nonstop and I thought they might relate to the Constitution a little bit (probably not). We read about Emmitt Till (again, from Truck's excellent book) and tried to explain lynching. Then we walked to the Legacy Museum.
This is a two part experience, which I had read about but didn't comprehend. The only experience to which I can compare this is visiting the Holocaust Museum.
Observation #1: I needed more time. If we (adults) had been there without kids, I think we might have spent two hours in the museum. The multimedia exhibits (this is a link to EJI's youtube channel, which has 100+ pieces available) are extraordinary and you should have enough time to experience each element and then digest it before moving on to the next.
Observation #2: The people who created this are geniuses. For me, the most powerful part is that it ends with questions. I showed these to Lily, these words in seething orange against a background of white and black. We modified the conveyor-belt metaphor of racism to a river and told Lily and Henry: there is passive racism (carried by the current); there is active racism (working in the direction of the current) and there is the opposite: paddling upstream. I saw in the questions posed by the museum a way to penetrate this paradigm. I think many of "us" (I identify with many categories of privilege, especially being white) don't know how to comprehend the entirety of racism, our part in it and how to change ourselves. [Ed: I've written and re-written the next sentence until I've given up and settled on the following.] These questions are a meaningful starting point.
Observation #3: You can (and should) go from the museum to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. As with the Holocaust Museum, you necessarily confront the duality of an atrocity: on one hand, the scale is incomprehensible. There are numbers but they are beside the point. The memorial represents what one "people" did to another "people." On the other hand, there are individuals, in this case with their names inscribed on monoliths representing the county in which they were murdered. The memorial also represents what persons did to persons. [Ed: comparing things to the Holocaust is treacherous; my intention is to compare my experience visiting the Holocaust Museum with my experience visiting the Legacy Museum and Memorial.]
Observation #4: Lily "got" it today, which didn't surprise me. What caught me off guard was Cate, who is a Deep Feeler, crying at many parts of the museum and the memorial. I can't imagine that this barely-six year old really gets it but something in her really did. I've found that Big Experiences tend to surface later with these kids and I wonder how this is going to pop up again days, weeks, or months from now.
Observation #5: Please go. I don't know whether you are paddling against the current of the Racism River, floating with the current or rushing downstream. It was clear to Elise and to me that it was Important to visit here. Although I've consumed the stories of Montgomery my whole life, there is nothing like actually being here, walking through the tunnel where slaves were dragged, standing near the site of the public auctions, eating in restaurants that used to be warehouses for human chattel.
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