I dropped the dogs off for baths at the vet office early this morning. Odd thing about that: the street is shown on the street signs as being named Robison Street, but the vet clinic is named Robinson Street Veterinary Clinic.
Since the dogs were going to be at a vet clinic, and since Banfield seems to be keeping their records as secret as Pres. Trump's telephone transcripts, and since the dogs are out of both tick medicine and heartworm medicine - both of which require a prescription, I asked this clinic to take this opportunity to do the doctor exam or whatever they need to do to think it's okay to prescribe the meds.
When I picked the dogs up early this afternoon, they were clean and happy, I had enough meds to take care of both of them for a year, and I was about $600 poorer. But the clinic had let them out into a fenced yard with grass while they were waiting, instead of keeping them in a cage, which was a nice bonus.
I found a nice clean laundromat down the street a couple of miles, and it turned out to be an incredible racket. The machines operated only with a card that had to be bought there; and the machines cost odd amounts - like $4.79 for a washer, and 8¢ for 6 minutes in a dryer. The dryer was an especial ripoff because the machines didn't all work very well. One I put my clothes in took about 2 minutes before it got hot, and then the last 2 minutes were for a cool-down, which meant my clothes got only 2 minutes of heat. And I couldn't add any time to that first 6 minutes but had to wait for the cycle to run (including cool-down) before I could add money, so instead of 1 cool-down period at the end of a long period of heat, I had one every 6 minutes. Plus the odd amounts of money required meant I couldn't use it enough times to come out to an even dollar amount. When I'd finally gotten my clothes clean and dry, I still had 61¢ on the card, and I gave it to a young woman who said she came there regularly. The woman who worked there was very pleasant and helpful, which was the only reasonable part of that experience.
I'm seeing a lot of pansies - it's that time of year, after all - but I found some purple pansies planted around a flower bed that also held some orange and yellow tulips, which I thought it was much too soon for. But the purple/orange/yellow combo knocked my socks off.
I passed a museum for Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Zelda grew up in Montgomery, the daughter of a prominent citizen; several streets and other locations are named for her. Scott, Zelda and their daughter Scottie came here for a winter, although Scott took off for the West Coast for several months right after they moved in. The museum is in the home they lived in while they were in town.
When I was driving by the Greyhound bus station, I saw a historical marker titled Civil Rights Freedom Riders and realized it must be commemorating the first Freedom Ride in 1961 where the KKK bombed the bus and beat the riders in Anniston; then on to Birmingham where again the KKK beat up the riders, targeting especially the white riders, who local hospitals refused to treat; and with Alabama National Guardsmen riding the bus for protection, on to Montgomery - but the Guard abandoned the bus at the county line and a white mob met the bus at the Montgomery bus station, beating them especially badly while the local police refused to intervene. Interesting account at this link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/Freedom-Riders
I've been seeing signs all over the state advertising "Jeff Coleman 4 Congress" and, since the signs never mentioned which party he was in, I assumed he must be a Democrat in this strongly Republican state. Turns out he's not. Guess he just assumed folks would know he was Republican because, after all, he was running for statewide office here.
Here in Montgomery I've been seeing lots of signs for the Camellia Bowl, due to be played tomorrow. I'd never heard of it and have now learned it's one of the multiple NCAA bowl games.
Troy University is located here.
Driving through various parts of town I was surprised to see that Montgomery doesn't go in much for sidewalks.
Alabama State University is a prominent feature in town, and the campus is just a few blocks from the state capitol.
Alabama State Capitol
Built in 1851, this is the 4th building to serve as AL's capitol. It was here, ten years later, that Jefferson Davis took the oath of office as the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.
That clock over the portico on the front of the building is much more prominent in person than in this photo. To me it seemed so huge I had trouble looking at any other part of the building. The 3 clock faces (one on each side) are each 10' in diameter; the hands are 3' and 4' long. Apparently others better versed in architecture than I am have also criticized this clock as being "architecturally inappropriate," per Wikipedia. It was a gift to the state from the city of Montgomery. Wonder what message they were trying to send to the legislature.
It's possible to drive right up to the front door, but it's not possible to stop, get out and take photos, so the one above is from the internet. The capitol as I saw it had a big Christmas tree out front, just as it appears in this picture, except I remember lots of holiday decorations I don't see pictured.
Dexer Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church
This church is less than a block from the capitol, but I wasn't looking for it and was just turning the corner when suddenly, there it was on the corner. MLK was the pastor here 1954-1960; many civil rights programs were designed in his office in the basement of the church, including the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Civil Rights Memorial
This memorial is just around the corner from the church. You may be able to tell that it was designed by Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. It was built by the Southern Poverty Law Center to commemorate 41 people who were killed during the civil rights struggle of the '50s and '60s.
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| detail of the memorial |
The wall and the table both have water running over them continuously. Although this is easily accessible to the public, when the public is driving an oversized vehicle it's hard to find a parking place. Especially when the city has the opposite side of the street blocked off for parking purposes and a guard to shoo people away when they (me) try to stop. So these photos are off the internet.
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
This memorial was opened just last year, and I'd heard about it during an NPR interview at the time of its dedication. It commemorates those who were lynched in the US between 1870 and 1950 and is designed to feel like an area where people were hanged, so you gradually feel among the dead and tormented.
It begins with a brief history of American race relations, starting from the first Africans who were brought to this continent as slaves. It's trying to explain to visitors how on earth we got to such a place that wholesale or random killing of others could be accepted by a large part of the population.
The history:
That's the background and the state of the nation for the 90 years following the Civil War.
County monuments:
The Memorial presents the victims of lynchings by the county in which they died. For examples:
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| Tulsa County, OK |
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| Lamar County, TX |
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| McClennan County, TX |
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Williamson County, TX, on right -
both lynchings were as recently as the 1930s |
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Carroll County, MS, shows
massacre of 23 at once in 1886 |
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St. Clair County, IL, shows
massacre of 40 at once in 1917 |
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Sabine County, TX, shows 9 of
these 10 were killed on the same day in 1908 |
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Anderson County, TX, shows 15 of
the 22 were killed on the same day in 1910 |
The atmosphere:
The county monuments are hanging along 4 avenues, and visitors walk along and through them on a floor that goes gradually lower into the ground, until the monuments are hanging high above our heads.
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| first level |
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| 2nd level |
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| 3rd level |
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| 4th level - water runs down the face of this wall |
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to understand the depth, you can just make out
a person at the end of this 3rd level |
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on 4th level: "Thousands of African Americans are unknown victims
of racial terror lynchings whose deaths cannot be documented,
many whose names will never be known. They are all honored here." |
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| at the bottom of the 3rd level |
More monuments in the courtyard:
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| lynchings in OK not shown on county monuments |
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| West Virginia lynchings |
And lest folks think these lynchings were confined to the South:
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| Indiana lynchings |
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| Kansas lynchings |
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| Maryland lynchings |
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| Missouri lynchings |
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| Ohio lynchings |
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I noticed both these TX counties had
lynchings as late as the 1940s |
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this one showing David Gregory was lynched
in 1933 was unsettling -
that's the name of my brother and my cousin |
Explanations:
The memorial explains why some of these lynchings happened:
in 1933 an AL woman was lynched for reprimanding white children who threw rocks at her
in 1937 a TX man was lynched for reporting a group of white men who attacked him
in 1925 an AL man was lynched for refusing to run an errand for a white woman
in 1926 a FL man was lynched for asking a white woman for a drink of water
in 1918 a pregnant GA woman was lynched when she complained about the lynching of her husband
in 1891 a TN man was lynched for being "intoxicated"
And then there were the mobs:
in 1917 in IL dozens of men, women and children were lynched in a massacre
in 1922 in GA a 15-year-old was burned alive by a mob of 1,000
in 1919 a MS man was lynched by a mob of several thousand
in 1906 2 MO men were lynched by a mob of 5,000
in 1901 in FL a 16-year-old was burned alive by a mob of thousands
in 1919 a NB man was lynched by a mob of 15,000
in 1921 dozens were lynched in the Tulsa, OK, massacre
in 1922 a WV man was lynched by a mob of 1,000
in 1911 a PA man was burned alive by a mob of 1,000 men, women and children
in 1893 in TX a 17-year-old was lynched by a mob of 10,000
Just as a sample of the random terror that was inflicted on the black population.
I now understand more clearly the quote I found at one of the Selma March Interpretive Centers:
"We been walkin' with dropped-down heads, with a scrunched up heart, a timid body in the bushes. But we ain't scared any more."
Not much wonder why anyone would be scrunched up and timid, living with fear like that.
Additional memorials:
This memorial was intended to honor those who died in the first 90 years after the Civil War, but that doesn't mean the terror killings and lynchings stopped in 1950. Across the street is a memorial to others who died in the '50s.
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| there's water running down the face of this monument |
The drive back
I picked up the dogs all clean and bouncy, and now with cleanish beds, and drove back to the campground.
This last memorial sickened me in a way none of the others had for some reason, and I think I've seen enough for now.
Growing up in a sheltered environment, mostly in segregated Waco, I had no idea what life was like for the black people I scarcely knew were there. Which is why I was especially troubled by the monument (above) for McClennan County, where Waco is. These various memorials and museums I've been visiting for the last few months have educated me bit by bit - a different focus at each one - so I now have a completely different perspective on life in the United States, both then and now.
I was lucky to have parents who taught me that people are just people, no matter what their skin color or religion or hair color or any other identifying feature. They didn't themselves do anything to make society recognize that fact, but at least they didn't burden me with myths about one right church or one right people over others. So my learning curve has at least been less painful and arduous than for others, but it's still been steep.
And I think I'll take a break for a while on the civil rights stuff.
This hanging memorial, by the way, has copies of the county monuments that they hope will be taken to the various counties for use in location-specific memorials around the country. If you're interested in making that happen in your county, the memorial folks will be glad to talk to you.
