| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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So in September, 1861, General Beauregard designed a new flag with white stars in a blue St. Andrew's Cross on a red field. This is what we usually think of as the Confederate flag, but the display here said that it (in its square form) was the battle jack and (in its rectangular form) the naval jack.
People still pushed for a change in the official flag, however, and on May 1, 1863, the Second (or Third, according to some) Flag of the Confederacy was authorized, with Beauregard's battle jack in the upper left corner of a white field. This was called the 'Stainless Banner,' but merely led to further confusion, as on a windless day this could easily be confused with a white flag of truce. So on March 4, 1865, the Third (or Fourth) Flag of the Confederacy was authorized. This was the 'Stainless Banner,' but with a red vertical stripe on the right-hand side.
Now that I've completely bored you with the history of the Confederate flag (which nevertheless was the most interesting part of the First White House of the Confederacy), we can proceed to the Alabama Archives and History Museum. Here they have a free taped tour that walks you around the building. In the front hall they have busts of famous Alabamans: Booker T. Washington and George W. Carver are recent additions. (In fact, there are several places where you can tell they have recently-within the last couple of decades-added Black Alabamans to those being honored.) The displays start with the Indians, then proceed to the military history. There was a temporary exhibit about Helen Keller (who was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama). Did you know that it was Mark Twain who coined the name 'the Miracle Worker' for Annie Sullivan?
There was another display about the Montgomery bus boycott which was started after Rosa Parks was arrested. This boycott ran from December 5, 1955, to December 21, 1956, and was the subject of the movie The Long Walk Home.
There was even a Torah scroll donated by a Montgomery congregation. (Later we passed a sign for the original building for Kahl Montgomery. They sold it when they moved to a new location; it's now a Church of Christ.)
The last section was on Alabama music and musicians. The three most famous musicians were W. C. Handy (of Beale Street, Memphis, fame, but born in Florence, Alabama), Nat King Cole (born in Montgomery), and Hank Williams (born in Georgiana).
At 2 PM we went to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church for the tour, but since we were the only two people there, they did not give a tour. We did see the video about the church, which was the first pastoral position held by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the place where the Montgomery bus boycott was organized. We also saw the mural in the basement which depicted the civil rights struggle.
Next was lunch, then the Alabama State Capitol. There was a statue here for Lurleen Wallace, and portraits of all the governors including George Wallace. Mark points out that Wallace did something that he can't remember any other politician doing: he admitted he was wrong. On January 14, 1963, he said, 'Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.' But in 1979 he admitted he was wrong about segregation and in his attitudes about race in general. Everyone remembers his first statement; it's unfortunate he is not remembered for admitting he was wrong.
In the State Capitol, we saw the room where the Alabama representatives voted to secede from the Union, and the Senate chamber where the seven states formed the Confederacy. Outside the State Capitol were several bouquets for Princess Diana. Why they were outside the Alabama State Capitol is a mystery to me.
Finally we went to see the Civil Rights Memorial outside the Southern Poverty Law Center. This was designed by Maya Lin, the same person who designed the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. The Civil Rights Memorial consist of two parts. There is a water wall with King's paraphrase of the Biblical verse (Amos 5:24) about justice rolling down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. And there is a water table-an elliptical granite table with water flowing from one focus outward to the edge. On the table in brass letters are the major steps of the civil rights struggle, including the names of forty people who died because of their part in it. (Notably, no segregationists' names are on the table; they are referred to by the titles or positions.) Lin said that the table was round like a clock, with the entries being the hands of a clock. The water on it meant that when you looked at it, you saw yourself reflected in it. It also seemed to me that it meant that when you touched the table (as everyone inevitably does), you take part of it with you.
Finally, we drove to Birmingham, Alabama, for the night.
One observation I can make here: if there is a city in the South that does not have a street, drive, boulevard, road, or highway named after Martin Luther King, Jr., we did not drive through it.
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Our first stop today was the Southern Museum of Flight (http://www.the-matrix.com/flight/museum.html) ($3). Luckily there were signs directing us to it, because it several turns off the main highway. This contained, among other things, Baron von Richthofen artifacts on loan from Ted Thomas, III. Who Ted Thomas is and why he has Richthofen artifacts was not explained.
There were also some parachute ripcord rings, with the information that if you needed to bail out, it was a matter of honor to return with your parachute ripcord ring. There were also some navigation calculators that look a lot like slide rules.
Most of the displays were airplanes built from kits, or home-built, and other private planes. For example, the Rand-Robinson KR-1 weighs less than a motorcycle (310 pounds), and has a Volkswagen engine. It also apparently still leaks oil, no matter how well they clean it. There was a Rutan Vari-eze, made of Styrofoam, with a rear propeller and a front wing, which makes it so stable that you don't need to be at the controls while it is cruising.
They showed a videotape of newsreel footage of humorous early experimental aircraft. Some worked; some didn't.
Wending our way back through the twists and turns, we drove to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Right outside we saw radio station WENN. This probably won't mean anything to you unless you watch the series 'Remember WENN' on AMC. Of course, on the series the station is in Pittsburgh, but the lettering for the Birmingham station is identical to that used on the show.
Next to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is the 16th Street Baptist Church. This was the church that was bombed on September 15, 1963, killing four little girls. It was rebuilt shortly after that, and was going to be holding a memorial service in a few days. It was also the second Black church in Birmingham, founded in 1871.
We had thought that the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (http://www.the-matrix.com/bcri/bcri.html) ($3) might be too similar to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, but it was not, and was much better. It started with a section on the position of Blacks in the South and particularly in Birmingham from Reconstruction through the 1950s. This included comparisons of schools, housing, public accommodations, and working conditions. It talked about the 1894 and 1908 strikes of coal miners, and about how workers were kept from protesting because the mines could employ convicts cheaper and with less trouble. The Institute used displays and physical representations for a lot of this. For example, two piles of schoolbooks indicated the relative amount of money spent per student in white schools and in Black schools.
There were a few interesting facts. When President Warren Harding visited Birmingham in 1921, he pushed for an end to segregation. This was well received by the Blacks in the audience, but not by the whites. Also, Willie Mays played for the Birmingham Black Barons. (I suppose baseball fans probably already know this.)
The school exhibit said in part, 'Inequalities existed in school programs as well as materials. Before 1940, the school year for Black students was shorter and the courses emphasized industrial, agricultural, and domestic training.' This was apparently a criticism, but the original intent of the Tuskegee Institute under Booker T. Washington was just such practical training, so there is obviously some dispute on what the correct approach should have been.
There was a section on Black entertainers which included a 'video jukebox' where you could see and hear such singers as Cab Calloway, Bo Diddley, and Bessie Smith. (I'm sure think will mark me as ignorant, or at the very least not a rock and roll fan, but until this, I hadn't realized Bo Diddley was Black.) They talked about how films played in the Black theaters after having played in the white theaters, but they made no mention of 'race films': those films made by Black production companies from Black audiences. (Turner Classic Movies ran several of them last February, and will undoubtedly run more.)
Other sections following this included Segregation (this had voices of various people from that time giving their views on segregation), Confrontation (I knew but didn't remember that Virginia and Arkansas tried to close their public schools rather than integrate them-the Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional), The Movement, The Welcome Table, Bus Ride to Freedom, Freedom in the Air, Give Us the Vote (with a video 'Lift Every Voice,' that told of the struggle for the vote which dated back to the turn of the century), A Constant Struggle, Walk Together Children, and so on. Each had a timeline of that particular time period (usually a year) with events in the civil rights movement and in the world at large. There were also short videotapes and some displays, photographs, newspaper articles, and other materials.
There was also a display of the photographs of VanDerZee, including one of the Beth B'nai Synagogue of Black Jews, founded by 'Rabbi Matthew,' who claimed to be a native of Sierre Leone, but was actually an ex-boxer. (It no longer exists.)
In its use of a variety of materials and presentation methods, this museum manages to convey its information more completely than the Memphis one. That one had a lot of information, but it was all in text form and after a while it was hard to absorb more, while this didn't overload one method.
If you are interested in other sites in the area, there is a 'Civil Rights Tour' available on the web at http://www.bham.lib.al.us/vulcanet/culture/civil.htm.
We finished in Birmingham fairly early, so decided to drive to Anniston and see the Anniston Museum of Natural History (http://www.anniston.org). ($3.50 minus $1 AAA discount). This has, of course, dinosaurs. It also has an artificial cave with a discussion of trogloxenes, trogolophiles, and troglobites. Trogloxenes are those animals that only come into caves for short periods, but spend most of their time outside (such as bats). Trogolophiles are animals that spend most of their time within caves, but go outside occasionally, and troglobites are those which live entirely in caves.
This was followed by a section on 'Attack & Defense.' This is one of the few places I've seen bears called omnivores (usually people say that humans are the only omnivores). This was a fairly even-handed exhibit, neither overly sympathizing with the victim nor overly cheering the attacker. However, I'm not sure how one would describe the photograph later on of a salmon jumping into a bear's mouth.
'Designs for Living' consisted of 500 specimens of 140 species of birds displayed in 60 habitats. These were created by H. Severn Regar and donated by William Werner. |
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