Sunday Stroll

Birmingham, Alabama. Shops closed. Traffic lights hung over empty streets changing for no one. While walking to from the train station down 20^th Street, I took comfort in passing cars or the occasional lighted window, grey skies backdropped the rolling four lane street and Napoleonic skyline. Clearly, Southern blood does not run through my veins and a LA pace dominates my off days.

My strides toward and then north from the train station passed only a handful on the street, mostly African American. I’ve never felt so white or almost guilt of acts decades before my time. Wondering up and down the same roads made my alien status especially clear, and an attempt to view, new to my knowledge, a nonexistent show drove me to the anomaly of it all.

Near the Alabama Theatre The McWane Center did not stop for Sunday. Kids and parents ran around the interactive science museum while I sidestepped to the counter for a little direction. Nothing conclusive from the visit, except the obvious that nothing was open, but with copies of guides and maps in hand, my destination became clear and I began my walk northwestish; oddly the street grid is a little off kilter.

The Civil Rights Institute houses an impressive exhibit on the movement and its Birmingham context. A tour scheduled to start in two minutes did not crowd the hallways, as I was the sole visitor for this time, however the volunteer in the lobby understood with his experience living in Oakland. Those California transplants crop up everywhere.

Beginning the story in 1871, a movie introduced the framework with the advent of the railroad. Hey, that’s what I’m ridin’! Jefferson County smelled of the Industrial Revolution as coal and steel mills dominated the area, run by whites and labored by immigrants and blacks. Strikes in 1894 and 1904 raised concern and though slavery was long gone, colorlines and intimidation kept the population divided.

The screen pulled up to reveal the exhibit with sets of the areas were this separation was most prominent including schools, churches, buses, diners, and the courthouse. Time lines, audio, and newspaper articles provided a dialog with an amount of information making this an exhibit to visit multiple times. Though I’ve recently read the “I Have a Dream Speech” by MLK, the video makes me bite my inner lip to avoid any tears. 

But I found the Kelly Ingram Park outside the window odd. Though displaying sculptures about the issue on a plot of land from a peace demonstration comprised of children forcefully broken up by police, its perfectly manicured bushes and bright lawn stood out from the city. A city still grey with poverty and partitioned by gentrification, where this park only painted a picture to make the realities more digestible. I was not moved.

Starbucks does exist in Birmingham and I found myself in their Five Points area to email for the first time in twenty four hours. With an internet connection and Peppermint Mocha in hand, my initial loneliness in the city dissipated while eavesdropping on a graphic design conversation. Thayer Street all over again.