Montgomery sheds light on its history

Montgomery is the real, Deep South. It looks like it, feels like it, (in Spring it probably smells like it) and has the historical markers to prove it. First and foremost, Montgomery, Alabama was the capital of the Confederacy. President Jefferson Davis’ White House is right there on Washington Avenue, flag proudly flying, designated by the Provisional Congress in 1861, halfway down Goat Hill from the State Capitol Building where the Confederacy was born.

In 1965, more than 100 years later, thousands marched from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting rights and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke before an estimated 25,000. Southern states had enacted Jim Crow laws after Reconstruction that disenfranchised millions of blacks and enforced racial segregation. That had to stop.

There is a monument with a fountain nearby engraved with a quote by King, “...Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

The past is everywhere in Montgomery. At the center of town, the magnificent Court Square Fountain was built in 1885 over an artesian well spilling water into a pool centered by a cast iron sculpture encircled by Greek mythological figures.

The unfortunate historical background of this beautiful place was that it used to be the hub of the Antebellum slave market. Across the street from the fountain, stood the bus stop where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, igniting the Bus Boycott that continued for 13 months. We passed an empty lot where commuters gathered daily to secure rides home from work. They didn’t want to lose their jobs!

I came to visit an old friend who grew up in Montgomery, made her debut, and enjoyed the romance of the Old South. She and her sister gave me a personalized tour of the city, which is by any measure, gracious and lovely, built on rolling hills with lush landscapes. They took me to the National Historic Trail where protesters marched 54 miles, camping in tent cities along the way. That nonviolent protest ultimately led President Lyndon Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Now, so many people don’t bother to exercise their right to vote!

My friend, her sister and I immediately began a conversation about our parents “protecting” us from knowing about civil disturbances, believing us too young to understand. Imagine living not 12 minutes away from where King was speaking and having no idea. I was pretty naive, too. We got a lot of catching up to do.

This past month was actually my second visit to Montgomery because I had decided to see The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice during the pandemic. At that time, I’d toured the Bus Boycott Museum that allows you to board the bus with Rosa Parks. I took my Labrador retriever Midnight on the trip, who did not enjoy the 5-hour drive nor waiting in the car while I toured the museums. Few places were open during Covid, so Midnight and I ate at the Waffle House twice! (She did like sausages.) And stayed overnight in a strange Airbnb with a pool table and plastic flowers. I had the museums almost to myself.

The Peace and Justice Memorial is open-air, so it was no problem, but since my earlier visit, the Legacy Museum had been moved to a much more spacious and impressive venue on the former site of a cotton warehouse. It is difficult to adequately describe the memorial as its design was purposefully intended to convey the immensity of terrorism inflicted on black people after the Civil War, while making the violence abstract.

To illustrate that 4,400 blacks were murdered in lynchings between 1877 and 1950, 800 corten steel monuments representing Southern counties, were engraved with lists of victims’ names and dates of their deaths. Similar to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, one approaches the monument from beneath, so the monuments appear to multiply, hanging overhead. Row after row, horizontally and diagonally, the names and counties continuously expand. It seems unbelievable that such violence was perpetrated, even celebrated, for so many years, unpunished and unacknowledged by the law. In some sense, words cannot convey the horror as well as these faceless monoliths do.

I picked out a few parishes I knew something about to examine. Caddo Parish in northwestern Louisiana experienced particularly heinous events, apparently caused by blacks organizing and demanding to be paid fairly for their crops. Whites simply murdered the leaders to get the right price. There were individuals lynched for whistling at a white woman or refusing to fetch groceries. One black man asked to marry his white employer’s daughter. The monument is emotionally overwhelming as well as righteously powerful.

I had seen the previous Legacy Museum,,but it hardly compared to the new building. The stark exterior cannot prepare visitors for its visually arresting, immersive panorama. (No photos allowed!) Projections on four walls of dark stormy seas surround visitors. One is forced to imagine being held captive on a sailing ship headed to parts unknown. The slaves’ story goes on from there, being auctioned, transported, bred and mercilessly worked and punished. A few facts I had not known: 1) there were 36,000 slave ship voyages 1514-1860 2) 12 million men, women and children were shackled together 3) 2 million died enroute 4) slavery in the U.S. lasted 250 years. The East Coast was equally guilty!

By the time you’ve walked through the Legacy Museum, you will feel grateful for your life.

There are some other museums in Montgomery. The Hank Williams and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald Museums, but once you’ve been through the slavery museums, it is really difficult to scale back down. I did spend an afternoon at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, which has some lovely works.

My friend’s sister treated us all to lunch at Chris’ Famous Hotdogs, established by a Greek immigrant in 1917. Chris’ customers have included Franklin D. Roosevelt, George H.W. Bush, Elvis, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gov. George Wallace. You used to be able to order buttermilk and pigs’ feet at the counter. Looks like it has never been redecorated.