Birmingham -- Formerly known as "Bombingham"

Jim and I spent March 2^nd through the 4^th in Birmingham - Alabama's largest city.  We played in a regional bridge tournament while there, but did not fare well.  Due to a comedy of errors regarding the events we mistakenly entered, we found ourselves at times playing against “pros."  It makes me laugh to think that there are professional bridge players! - but there are.  They are expert players paid to help their partners gain master points.  

So, instead of talking about our successes at the bridge table (since we didn't have any), I’ll talk again about civil rights.  We began our civil rights experience at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the largest museum we visited.  A brief introductory video described how the steel “boom town” of Birmingham grew on the backs of immigrant and black labor -- and also grew more and more racially segregated.  "Jim Crow" laws - passed in the 1920s -- segregated virtually every facet of life, including public restrooms, lunch counters, parks - even ambulances and hearses!   

Jim going first down the whites only side

When the film ends, the screen slides up, and you are invited to enter the museum through one of two routes – the whites only side or the colored side.  I was momentarily stymied; I didn’t want to choose.  

But after you enter you are able to go back and forth across the whites only and colored sides.  The exhibits showed the inequality of schools, jobs and living conditions in the 1950s, starting with the vintage water fountains labeled by race that you walk past to enter. Similarly, a side-by-side comparison of white and African-American classrooms of the time show the classroom for white students with a projector and glossy textbooks, while the classroom for black students was furnished with little more than beat-up wooden desks.

The institute is then organized by civil rights theme (i.e. freedom rides, voting rights, housing battles, etc.) and shows timelines and key actors relative to each.  So much information!  I've covered some of these at earlier stops.  Other areas of focus I decided to leave for the future. For example, we could go to Greensboro to honor the first lunch counter sit-in, or to Little Rock to remember school desegregation.  (Jim - I can envision several trips right now!)

Two exhibits I will cover, though, as they struck me as most relevant to Birmingham. The first was seeing the cell in which Dr. King was confined when he wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” after being arrested on Good Friday,1963. This letter – written on the margins of a newspaper and sometimes on toilet paper - defended his sense of urgency and his non-violent, but confrontational tactics. 

Dr. King's Birmingham jailcell

Looking at the cell and imagining him imprisoned there, I couldn’t help but think about the last jail cell we saw like this – Nelson Mandela’s on Robben Island, South Africa.  I considered how similar apartheid and our segregation were.  And, I realized that both these men were sitting in similar cells on the very same night.  How similar the cells – and how similar these good men.  Nelson Mandela, of course, was imprisoned much, much longer.  But, Dr. King was arrested 29 times, including once for exceeding the speed limit. 

The second exhibit covered the series of bombings that occurred in Birmingham.  Fire-bombing was a frequent tactic of the KKK.  In fact, from the late 1940s to mid 60s, nearly fifty still unsolved, racially directed bombings occurred in or near Birmingham.  So many that some national newspapers began referring to Birmingham as "Bombingham."  

One of the unsolved bombings targeted Dr. Martin Luther King’s brother.  On May 11, 1963, A.D. King’s house was bombed. When a bomb later exploded at the home of a black lawyer, thousands poured into the streets intent on revenge. As the situation escalated, A. D. King climbed on top of a parked car and shouted to the angry mob: “My friends, we have had enough problems tonight. If you’re going to kill someone, then kill me.  Stand up for your rights, but with nonviolence.”  The situation was defused, but the bombings continued.  

The final bombing occurred at the 16^th Street Baptist Church.  The exhibit shows a large photo of the blown-out wall, juxtaposed with smiling photos of the four girls who died. A wall clock is stopped at 10:22 – the time the bomb exploded during Sunday School.  Why was this the last bombing?  One of the girl's mothers sued the KKK and won! - and the monetary judgment was large enough that the KKK did not use bombs again.

Jim and I were at the museum the morning of Friday, March 2nd.  We had adequate time, but hurried some as we had been informed the institute was closing at noon for a private event.  We found out later than John Lewis, Doug Jones and others were coming as an early stop of the Selma Jubilee weekend.  It only seemed appropriate: Remember Doug Jones is Alabama's newest Senator after an upset win against Roy Moore.... and he prosecuted two of the KKK perpetrators of the 1963 church bombing.  Wish we would have stuck around and gotten a picture!

As we left, we realized that building the Institute at this location was not accidental.  Some of the most infamous scenes in Birmingham happened in the surrounding blocks. The museum faces Kelly Ingram Park, where early in 1963, public safety commissioner Bull Connor blasted protesters – many of them children - with fire hoses and set dogs on them. And, it was built directly across the street from the 16th Street Baptist Church. We went there next.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church:  Tragedy during Sunday School

Because the 16th Street Baptist Church has an active congregation and isn’t just a museum, the story of the bombing is housed in a small room in the basement.  

Again, here's the history: On Sunday, September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded, killing four young girls attending Sunday School and injuring more than 20 others at worship.  The names of the four girls were: Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all age 14 at the time of their deaths, and Denise McNair, who was 11.  

This replacement window was sent
to the church
from Wales after the bombing 

One of these girls loved Perry Mason.  Another - who was in 8^th grade - was wearing high heel shoes for the first time that morning.  A simple display case in the church basement contains those new shoes - along with the piece of brick that killed her taken from her skull.  I imagine I was attending Sunday School myself on that same day and time – only in Hawley, a world away. 

An enlargement of a vintage postcard shows the exterior rear steps under which the bundle of ten sticks of dynamite was hidden.  I was told at the church that the bomb blew out the face of Jesus from a full-length stain-glass window – and only his face.  Symbolic?  

No one was convicted in the bombing for 14 years.  The final bomber was convicted in 2002, some 39 years after the crime. 

I wandered the basement, primarily taking pictures of Carole Robertson. 

I felt the greatest connection to her.  You see - when I worked on the Superintendent’s team at the Minneapolis Public Schools in the 1990s, one of my team members was an aunt of Carole Robertson.  Her name was Katrina Reid and I’ll always remember the day I found out.  I asked her, “How do you live without bitterness, without hating all whites?” and she answered, “You can’t live with hate. You only die from hate.”

I remember her words as I walk, thinking how this bombing during Sunday School is only too similar to the 2017 mosque bombing in Bloomington MN minutes before morning prayers.  Thankfully, no one was hurt there, but it was a hate crime.  Hope we can all learn the lesson someday: “You can’t live with hate.  You only die from hate.”