While the campground had enough history to make me happy for a while, we did take a day and venture into Birmingham to the Civil Rights Museum. I knew that Alabama was one of the last bastions of the Jim Crow laws, but I did not realize that Birmingham itself was the "last bastion". So I am unsure if it is ironic or fitting that the Civil Rights Institute is located there.
The Institute is located directly across the street from the 16thStreet Baptist Church and Kelly Ingram Park, both historic scenes from the1960s. Most of the Institute is dedicated to the civil rights struggle of the US in the 1950s and 1960s. The top floor, however, is reserved primarily for other civil rights struggles throughout the world, including gay rights,Darfur, Tianmen Square, Poland, and Guantanamo Bay. I felt it demonstrated that no matter how far we as a society have come, there is always more work to do.
The Institute is organized in an unusual way. The exhibits follow a spiral from the first floor up to the second in chronological order. The atmosphere also goes from quite dark to bright daylight at the top. I am unsure if it was intentional,but it seems to be a reflection of our society with regard to American Civil Rights.
Birmingham is very straightforward about their history. They don’t sugarcoat it, nor are they apologetic. It simply is what it was.
I learned that one of the true heroes of the civil rights movement was Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, Jr. He was associated with Dr. King and suffered many of the same indignities. He was a Birmingham minister and was significant in bringing them into a new age.
The trip to the Institute was very moving, but I was left pretty depressed by it. To think that these atrocities occurred in my lifetime reminds me of how vicious and cruel humans are to each other. I now believe more than ever in Random Acts of Kindness.
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