Alabama’s history still confronting

Julie Orr-Wilson takes a civil rights road trip through Alabama.

Not since the release of one of my favourite movies, Fried Green Tomatoes, in 1991, and the brief moment the quilters of Gee’s Bend had in the New York fashion limelight, had I given a visit to Alabama, perhaps even  the United States, a thought. I surprised myself then, when offered the chance to take a road trip through southern Alabama,  and agreed. Tied up with the Gee’s Bend quilters and the movie was the fact that my civil rights history was sketchy. I felt a responsibility to find out more.

I had grown up with my mother playing  the classic Western song: "Oh Susanna! Oh don’t you cry for me! For I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee", (the 1846 racially offensive language having been adjusted). And I had read To Kill a Mockingbird in my school certificate year. No other book had disturbed me as much during my formative years, so I was packing a certain amount of preconception.

We made it to Monroeville, Alabama, after a stop in pretty, flower-lined Fairhope, where it only seemed right to fuel up on grits and green tomatoes. My foodie friend claimed they were the best she’d eaten. On the list, a visit to the Page and Palette bookstore to  buy a copy of local writer Fannie Flagg’s novel, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

As it turned out, Monroeville was dead. The few stores and the 1903 Old Monroe County Courthouse were all closed, so the official walking tour map wasn’t going to work. We took our own and ticked off a bronze sculpture, "Celebration of Reading", in the grounds of the  courthouse, a vacant section where Truman Capote’s childhood refuge had stood, and "Mel’s Dairy Dream" store, the site of Harper Lee’s home. It was beyond disappointing to think so little had been done to capitalise on the town’s literary contribution. Wayne Flynt, in the recently published Mockingbird Songs, explains that Harper "had always rejected Monroeville for its insularity and parochialism. Nothing better demonstrated this than her refusal to use her literary fame to promote the local economy". It really showed.The highlight of Monroeville became tasty, authentic, catfish, greens and grits with the locals at the only diner, "David’s Catfish House".  My only memento of the town is a flyer advertising the 10th annual "Fruitcake Festival", featuring a reading of Truman Capote’s classic A Christmas Memory. For that I would have stayed.

It was a relief to leave our motel dive where, throughout the night, I felt part of an American  movie set, as cars drove off, doors slammed and voices were raised. I guess it was no coincidence that my room had three locks and, for safety, my companion had insisted we sleep on the second floor.Taking backroads through fading cotton-fields and pastures, intriguing snowball wads of cotton lining the roadside, stands of maples midway between green and gold, we made it early morning to Selma, crossing the historically significant steel-arch Edmund Pettus Bridge. Our destination: First Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Jr St, for a southern church service. The church was  the starting point for the 1965 Selma to Montgomery civil rights march. The Edmund Pettus Bridge was where the march was stopped by police batons and tear gas on Bloody Sunday. We joined in southern-style singing; Down through the years, God’s been good to me, along with other favourites. I knew them all. Following a fiery sermon we headed to Jawana Jackson’s family home, a living museum of national significance, for a private tour.There are not many people who can use the title "uncle" to describe Martin Luther King jun. A close friendship between Jawana’s parents  meant  Luther King regularly  stayed at their home, which was used as a base for the local civil rights movement. It’s the place where negotiations took place with the United States Justice Department following  Bloody Sunday, which led to a later successful march to Montgomery.

Jackson told us of  Nobel  Peace Prize winner Ralph  Bunche’s stay. When he pressed Luther King jun on what he hoped the march would achieve, the reverend had replied, "Justice and peace is fine but we’re out for dignity and righteousness."We take our time and pictures at the Edmund Pettus Bridge before making our way to Boykin, excited at the prospect of meeting the  Gee’s Bend quilters. We hoped to hear them sing. From a history of slavery, later sharecropping, their famous quilts were born out of necessity. Influenced in part by African textiles, this isolated community  developed  its own distinctive quilt style. Not only do they have quilts in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, but they  have released an album, The Train: The Gospel Sessions.

Sadly it was not to be. As in their gospel lyrics, "Steal away, I ain’t got long to stay, My Lord is calling", many of the members had "passed on". They are down to a handful of stitchers.  Current manager Mary Ann Pettway, inspired by all the fun the others were having, took up the art of quilting in 2005, and is still creating commissioned quilts. Sharing a fried chicken lunch we sat around at the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective watching a video of their halcyon years. It was poignant leaving knowing we were witnessing the passing of a unique tradition.

Making it to Montgomery, it was sobering to stand alongside the beautiful Italianate Court Square Fountain, on Dexter Ave, knowing this was the hub for the slave trade in Alabama. More than 10 million black men, women and children were transported from West Africa and sold into slavery in the Americas, nearly 2 million more  perished during the voyage.

Opposite was the historic bus stop where Rosa Parks, famous for her "quiet courage", refused  to give up her seat on a bus, as segregation laws demanded. Down the street there’s a dedicated museum which stands on the spot where Parks was arrested. What stops me is a simple plaque: "Rosa Parks whose ‘NO’ was heard around the world". My companion and I continue to  remark, "And this is in our life-time!". This is my purpose; to see and feel the enormity of wrong-doing. By the time we reach Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, Martin Luther King’s parish from 1954-60, I’m glad Wanda, our African-American guide, is upbeat. It’s pathetic, I know, but I don’t think I can take much more. It was the hub of the Montgomery bus boycott, following Rosa Parks’ arrest. The church was and is part of the fabric of the community. Before we leave, Wanda requests we hold hands, and delivers a prayer for peace and love.

Regretfully, there’s little time left to visit the Equal Justice Initiative centre, a non-profit, human rights organisation working for the poor, incarcerated, the condemned and children. Here the past is pulled into the present. It’s confronting to be handed a weighty pack of print with titles such as, Lynching in America, Challenging Abusive Punishment of Juveniles, A History of Racial Injustice and the centre’s 2016 annual report, which continues to challenge America’s racial inequality.An important last stop is the site where in April  this year the first national memorial for victims of lynching, "The Memorial to Peace and Justice", will be unveiled.

Our final day begins in Birmingham at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, whose catchphrase is, "Where Jesus Christ is the Main Attraction". It’s hard to argue with this as we view the stunning stained-glass window donated by the people of Wales in memory of Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair who were killed in a church bombing, in 1963, at the height of civil rights racial tension, the same day another two black youths were also murdered. Across the road I linger in the Kelly Ingram Park, the staging post for early 1960s demonstrations. Black-and-white images of police dogs and fire hoses turned on peaceful marchers are hard to ignore.

No other American state captures the civil rights story better than Alabama and the comprehensive Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, about to celebrate  its 25th anniversary, holds the most extensive collection of civil rights history. Our African-American guide imparts that on all his 50 visits to Birmingham, Martin Luther King jun was always arrested. There is so much to take in. It’s overwhelming in so many ways. I’m left with Norman Rockwell’s iconic image, The Problem We All Live With, which shows 6-year-old Ruby Bridges being escorted to school during early desegregation efforts in 1960.

Andrew Young, a former US ambassador, recalled: "I saw the Berlin Wall come down, when I saw the students in Tiananmen Square, when I saw the Polish shipyard workers, and when they were all singing, ‘we shall overcome’, I knew that what we did in Birmingham, not only had an impact on human rights in the south of the United States, but really made an impact on the entire world ...". The Equal Justice Initiative believes that a deeper engagement with the nation’s history of racial injustice is important to address  present-day questions of social justice and equality. It would be trite and downright disrespectful to begin any sentence with the line, "I have a dream ..." but  not many folk take a trip to Alabama, American citizens or otherwise. Better I suggest ... that y’all did.

- Dunedin-based travel writer Julie Orr-Wilson was a guest of Destination Montgomery and Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau.