Days 2 & 3 - Montgomery

Thursday, May 8, 2014:

Today we started off our second full day in Alabama by visiting the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church, which was the first and only church of which Martin Luther King, Jr. was pastor from 1954-1960. We had a fantastic tour guide, Wanda, who walked us through the Civil Rights Movement via a mural painted in the basement of the Church. She then sang us Freedom Hymns while transporting us upstairs. We learned about MLK’s time at the Church, the Church’s role in the Civil Rights Movement, and how the Church is still a worshipping church, involved in the Montgomery community.

Civil Rights Memorial

After visiting the Dexter Ave. King Memorial Church, we took time to visit and eat lunch at the Civil Rights memorial fountain in front of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). We decided to visit the fountain today due to a protest happening on Friday, when we are scheduled to visit the Center. The same architect who designed the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., Maya Lin designed this fountain.  It commemorates 40 individuals who died for the Civil Rights movement from the Brown v. Board of Education through to MLK’s assassination, with a gap between the first and the last date to signify the many more who died before and after this time period for the movement.

Professor Charlie Hardy

After lunch we saw the Dexter Parsonage, where the pastors of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church were housed. This is where the King family lived from 1954-1960 during their time in Montgomery while MLK was the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church pastor.

At night, we supped back at Resurrection Parish. We heard from a professor at Alabama State University who urged us to live a life of significance as opposed to a life of importance, where importance is what is important to you and significance is putting something in the life of another. We also heard from Nelson Malden, MLK’s barber in Montgomery, Reverend Graetz, who was a white pastor of a predominantly black church in Montgomery during the Civil Rights Movement, Jennifer Taylor and Kiara Boone of the Equal Justice Initiative, and Doris Crenshaw, who was a Civil Rights Activist in the ‘50s and ‘60s. This Civil Rights dinner was a time where we could learn from historic and current movement leaders and try to better understand our environment in the South.

Written by Ryan Gillespie

Friday March 9, 2014:

We started our second day in Montgomery, Alabama at the Civil Rights Memorial Center, across the

Protestors in Front of the CRMC

street from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). There was a protest on the street in between the two buildings, so we were told we would be escorted into the building through the back. When we arrived, however, the protestors were setting up and the security escort was unnecessary. Upon entering the building we met our tour guide, Donovan, a young and energetic man from Detroit, Michigan. Donovan showed us the pictures and stories of the 40 people for whom the memorial is honoring, as well as a mural of defining moments in the Civil Rights Movement. From this room we could see the protestors setting up their signs against marriage rights for LGBTQIA individuals. The day before our tour, the SPLC filed a lawsuit against the state of Alabama for not recognizing the marriage of a gay couple, one of who recently died, and his belongings were left to his mother rather than his widower. The protestors were against this lawsuit.

We then continued the tour by watching a video of the Civil Rights Movement and the individuals who sacrificed their lives for the cause. The most prominent story was that of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old African American who reportedly “flirted” with a white woman and was then followed, beaten, tortured, and had his neck cut then body thrown into the Tallahassee river in Mississippi.  The setting on the walls of the theater was the Tallahassee River with police searching for the body of Emmett Till. After the movie ended, Donovan opened up the room to a stimulating conversation about issues the SPLC is currently working on, including capitol punishment in education and the jail systems in Alabama. We then walked through a hall of historical and contemporary civil rights movements and prominent figures including Nelsen Mandela and the fight against Native American mascots. At the end of the hall was the “Wall of Tolerance” in which individuals could sign if they agree to stand against injustice, which we do.

Alabama State Capitol Building

We then ate lunch at the Alabama state capitol building. The building was lovely but there was a strong tension in the air. Montgomery was the capitol of the Confederacy and the capitol building honors that
history through plaques and statues. One of the statues included a confederate flag with each side saying a phrase such as: “the knightliest of the knightly race who since the days of old have kept the lamp of chivalry alight in hearts of gold.” This tension exists in the capitol wanting to honor it’s history but its history is rooted in hatred and racism. It makes one wonder the impact this must have on the citizens of Alabama when the capitol building represents a confederate flag and racist passages on its premises.

After lunch and the torrential downpour that ruined my Birkenstocks, we went to the Equal Justice Initiative(EJI). The EJI strives for equality by representing clients who have been marginalized in the criminal justice system. As you could imagine, Alabama has one of the highest rates of incarceration with a majority of its inmates being African American. The EJI showed us a video discussing this discrepancy in the criminal justice with Bryan Stevenson (the Executive Director and TED Talk

Evita, Bella, Katie, Elisha, Nicole, Alexa, and Hannah
in front of the Equal Justice Initiative

lecturer) narrating. After answering some of our questions and leading a discussion, our tour guides, Jennifer and Allison, showed us around the office that was decorated by portraits of their clients. Many of the clients of EJI were sentenced to life in prison or execution as children and the EJI works with their clients to seek a second chance for these individuals who committed crimes so long ago. It was amazing to hear the stories of people who were convicted of crimes as adults at the age of fourteen and then released on parole at the age of forty. Allison explained that this is a severe transition for the inmates as they enter the “real world” with a low education, not knowing how to drive or accomplish things many people take for granted such as ordering food from a restaurant. The EJI helps seek justice for these individuals and support during the re-entry process in order to prevent recidivism.

Written by Elisha Codding