Civil Rights and Sculpture Gardens in Alabama

We actually got on the road on Tuesday morning, May 4th. We had been in Nappanee for 16 days. We headed south and made it as far as Louisville and a Wal-Mart parking lot. The next day, we made it into Birmingham, Alabama.
We visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the 16th Street Baptist Church. The church was the site of the explosion that killed four little girls in 1963. Two of the three Ku Klux Klan members responsible for the bombing were not arrested and convicted until 24 years later, in 2000. The Civil Rights Institute was very well done. After a short film introducing Birmingham from its’ founding until the 1920’s, the Barriers Gallery showed the conditions of segregation and discrimination between 1920 and 1954. They had video, audio and photos of the Civil Rights movement as well as the reproduced, charred shell of a bus burned during the Freedom Rides. Across the street from the museum and church was Kelly Ingram Park. (Photo courtesy of Flickr). It was the site of another famous civil rights incident. The public safety commissioner, “Bull” Connor fired water hoses and let police dogs loose on peaceful Civil Rights marchers, many of them children.
After our visit to Reverend Billy’s yard sculpture, we had to make a pilgrimage to the home of Joe Minter, a self-taught artist. Joe, a 65 year old carpenter, had a revelation from God in 1989. He felt led to construct a monument to African-American history. The yard is an amazing display of everything from a map of Africa to tributes to the Civil Rights movement, biblical scenes, and protests to the war in Iraq. We had the chance to talk with Mrs. Joe and she showed us the book (funded by Jane Fonda) on “yard sculpture” across the US. Joe had a major section in the book. Then, we got a chance to meet the artist himself.
Our last stop was at the Barber Motorsports Museum. It was an absolutely amazing display of motorcycles from the earliest days of cycling to today. The museum was on 6 floors with a full floor devoted to restoration of motorcycles. John was in heaven, particularly looking at the old British bikes. (Check out their web site, Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum) On the way back to the campground, we spotted a Persian restaurant, AliBaba. We had a great dinner.

From Birmingham, we headed to Mongomery, home of Alabama’s state capitol. The capitol was the site of George Wallace’s famous speech, “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever”. After lunch at a great Thai restaurant (Lek’s Railroad Thai), we took a trolley ride through the city with a great black guide. He gave us an interesting perspective on the Wallace years. Although branded a segregationist, he told us that the black community supported Wallace and he did a lot of good for blacks. We also learned about their other famous son, Hank Williams. Although he died at the age of 29, he had written over 400 songs and had a remarkable career and life.