From Atlanta, we drove to Montgomery, AL. On our way, we realized that we’d be spending Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in in the city that started the civil rights movement.
Our first stop was the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which commemorates the victims of lynchings between 1877 and 1950. Each county where a lynching took place has one hanging steel column with the names of the victims engraved.
The memorial includes some detail on the events that sparked the lynchings, and they are horrific:
- After Calvin Mike voted in Calhoun County, Georgia, in 1884, a white mob attacked and burned his home, lynching his elderly mother and his two young daughters , Emma and Lillie.
- Elizabeth Lawrence was lynched in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1933 for reprimanding white children who threw rocks at her.
- Jim Eastman was lynched in Brunswick, Tennessee, in 1887 for not allowing a white man to beat him in a fight.
- A black man was lynched in Millersburg, Ohio, in 1892 for “standing around” in a white neighborhood.
- After a white man attempted to assault Jack Brownlee’s daughter in Oxford, Alabama, in 1894, Mr. Brownlee was lynched for having the man arrested.
- Anthony Crawford was lynched in Abbeville, South Carolina, in 1916 for rejecting a white merchant’s bid for cottonseed.
- Henry Patterson was lynched in Labelle, Florida, in 1926 for asking a white woman for a drink of water.
And so on.
The next day, we went to the Rosa Parks Museum and the Civil Rights Legacy Museum, both of which were quite good. The story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is fascinating. (No photos were allowed in either museum.) But first was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade. There were some high school bands, Greek letter organizations, political candidates, and civic groups, and a replica of the bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.
I was surprised to see so few people along the parade route, but Montgomery, despite being the state capital, seems to be a hollowed-out city. It is very low density, with few tall buildings, and also apparently economically distressed. Granted, these photos were taken on a Sunday and on MLK Day, but the vibe was one of emptiness.
Next: Birmingham