Civil Rights Movement

October 12th through 20th, 2024

We spent many weeks next to the Logan Martin Reservoir in Alabama and had a great time with mom visiting. Mom left, and we had a bit more time to explore still more of the area. Key sites that factored into the early Civil Rights Movement happened in Alabama, and we wanted to learn more about them.

First, we went to the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site. They recruited and trained airmen at the airfield there, and it was one of the first examples of civil rights successes. It was shown that African American pilots were just as good as the white pilots the military already depended on, and it was a powerful message. The hangar museums were also very well done, with real planes inside the hangars.

It was a large airfield, and it was nice just to be outside on a sunny day to walk around and enjoy the outdoors.

Our next day had many things scheduled, and we wanted to see where the march from Selma to Montgomery happened. There are visitor centers in both towns, but the Selma center was closed at that time. We started in Montgomery so we could go to the Montgomery Interpretive Center first. We expected the usual National Park type of visitor center, but instead we found it was on the campus for Alabama State University. They were having a football game there, so it was a bit challenging to find a place to park. Again, we had a nice walk along the campus to get to the visitor center.

The center was nice, and though we didn't learn many new things we saw some powerful photographs. They also had an installation of life-sized figures all watching a stage where someone was speaking. You could stand among the figures like you were there. It was a little creepy, but still interesting.

When we left Montgomery, we drove to Selma along the path the marchers took. We thought we understood the march, but we didn't know it took them days to get from Selma to Montgomery. It wasn't even a short drive. It gave us time to really let it sync in, how that march really made an impact on the country and the world.

When we got to Selma, we were able to drive across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. This is where Bloody Sunday occurred, and so many important things happened. We parked on the other side in Selma and then walked to the other side and back.

The reason that this particular incident made such an impact, we believe, is that it was televised. People at the time probably heard about the injustices in the south and particularly in Alabama, but they hadn't seen it for themselves. Bloody Sunday really brought people together to challenge the authority at the time. We talked about whether we would have had that kind of bravery, and we weren't sure we had it in us. We were both so impressed with the people who were involved.

On the other side of the bridge just across the Selma city line, they had a few memorials, and a sad nature walk. It was kind of depressing to see that it wasn't commemorated as it should have been. But the walk across the bridge really moved both of us.

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We also watched the movie Selma and it was so inspiring. We have been recommending it and Till to everyone. There is so much we must learn about as citizens of this country. We felt fortunate to have stood in these historic places, and to learn about them.

Though a lot of bad things happened in Alabama, you could view them as a source for change. And we also didn't come away from Alabama with a bad impression. In fact, we visited the Little River Canyon National Preserve to see the beauty in the state.

Parts of the preserve reminded us of Colorado and the Midwest, with big hills and deep ravines. We walked along a lovely boardwalk to view a waterfall, and it was gorgeous. The Appalachian Mountains are such a beautiful place. We had a wonderful meal on a dock on Weiss Lake, yet another fabulous lake in Alabama.

We also saw cotton fields for the first time. Like typical tourists, we pulled to the side of a farm road to go take pictures of a field and its cotton plants. We also saw big bales of cotton that were amazing to us as we thought about how many t-shirts you could make with one. It was very cool and interesting to read about, and we even found a few YouTube videos to watch about cotton farming when we got back.

Alabama was a great place to visit and spend time in. Our campground was awesome, and the people were very friendly. In some ways, leaving Alabama was bittersweet. We started our tour of the southeast earlier in the year, and about eight months later we were headed back to Louisiana, Texas, and familiar areas. We weren't sure if we'd even like the south, but we'd grown to really love it. We were very sad to be leaving it behind, but we knew we'd return.