Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Our Own Civil Rights Mini-Tour

For some time, my wife and I had planned a brief trek across the South to see and experience some pivotal scenes in the history of civil rights in our country. Though the time was short, the experiences were deep.

We visited Money, Mississippi and the infamous Bryant's Grocery Store where Emmett Till was accused of whistling at the owner's wife. He died a brutal death within hours, and his murderers were deemed "not guilty" by an all white, male jury. Here are three scenes: 1) the marker in Money, 2) the store in its day, and 3) the gin where a 75 pound fan was seized and attached to his body before it was dumped in the Tallahatchie  River.


Marker at Bryant's Store

Store at it was in the day
The gin in Glendora
The gin is now the site of the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center in Glendora, Mississippi. At the gin we made new friends from Friendswood, Texas and Greenwood, Mississippi. That was a memorable conversation.


New friends from Mississippi and Texas
The following day, we had a most remarkable experience. We wanted to visit the site of the iconic photo and demonstration of the Tugaloo students at the Woolworth's counter in Jackson, Mississippi. Woolworth's is now a parking garage, but the marker is there commemorating the event. Loki Mulholland, a friend in these battles for justice, has noted on numerous occasions and in his three documentaries that his mother, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, sat at the counter. Before leaving town, we determined to deliver document to one of the principals in our black farmer documentary. Most people up and down Capitol Street. His office building was under reconstruction.

    A last ditch effort found us walking into an office that promoted the city. 
Woolworth's Capital Street, Jackson

Charla and I were twinsying on this particular day, wearing our match Black Farmer Land Loss Summit t-shirts.  While we stood at the desk discussing our agenda with the officer personnel, a woman walked past us, did an immediate u-turn, came back, and said, to me, "My father was a black farmer." A  lively conversation ensued.
Matching black farmer t-shirts
She immediately called her friend, the wife of the gentleman we wished to see. We were ecstatic.  This photo is taken after that wonderful conversation. We were amazed that the confluence of forces led us into that office, to her, to her friend, and from her friend to the office of the person we wanted to see.


Thursday was a most remarkable and heart rending day as we went to the Legacy Museum in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, on the very site in which enslaved Africans were warehoused prior to being auctioned. A dream of Bryan Stephenson, The Legacy Museum covers enslaved through mass incarceration via video, audio, photography, and other means to capture the brutality meted out upon the backs of the enslaved and its history up to the current time. Dr. Marsha Vaughn, friend, former student at Abilene Christian University, and faculty member at Judson University, Elgin, Illinois, was the inspiration and prompt for the tour. She is passionate about matters of justice.

National Monument for Peace
Telling the story by Akoto-Bamfo
Trinity County Texas











Up the hill a quarter of a mile or so is the National Monument for Peace and Justice. Immediately inside the large open space at the bottom of the hill is a gripping piece of sculpture by artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo of Ghana.

The design of the National Monument was both intriguing and moving. Moving clock-wise, steel rectangular cylinders represented the county and state and the name and date of the lynched person. When I found my own county, Trinity County, Texas, I was deeply moved. And likely remain so for a while.

A trip to Alabama would be incomplete without a trip to Selma.  The home of the infamous Bloody Sunday, March7, 1965, in which those marching from Selma to Montgomery were turned around at the bottom of the bridge by police, guns, water hoses, guns and all manner of violence. My wife and I walked peacefully over the Edmund Pettus Bridge which symbolizes the best and the worst of America during the Civil Rights Movement, the worst because people died in Selma, and the best because justice was realized, ultimately. We had a lively conversation with three women from Chicago and Selma. 

Edmund Pettus Bridge
We walked the bridge and then we walked through the memorial garden on just below the bridge on the way to Montgomery. As we walked the bridge, we pondered the names and faces of people we have seen in the media, but more dramatically, we pondered the stories of people we have gotten to know who have given their very lives for justice. That list of people stretch across the south, up the eastern seaboard, and reaches into the Bronx. I plan to see Selma again along with a few more important movies. Someday soon, I will also listen to some interviews done with farmers through the years.  I will be moved. Their stories must be told. Their stories are the stories of the civil rights movement in America.




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