The most striking thing to me about travels through Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham and Anniston was how much more effort has gone into marking, commemorating and even celebrating Alabama's civil rights history than what we saw in Mississippi. This observation is not mine really - the book we're travelling with by Jim Carrier told us to expect as much. But it's even more true than I think he signalled. Here's what we saw in Alabama - an amazing amount and some great quality tours and exhibits:
- The Dexter Avenue Church where MLK was Pastor 1954-60 (Montgomery)
- The Dexter Church Parsonage where he and his family lived (after succeeding the impressive Vernon Johns) and which was bombed (Montgomery)
- The Rosa Parks Museum (Montgomery)
- The Greyhound Bus Terminal/Freedom Riders Museum (Montgomery)
- The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham: left)
- The Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham)
- Murals at the Greyhound and Trailways Bus Terminal sites of Freedom Rider violence (Anniston) 
What I found remarkable too was the lack of vandalism or graffiti on some of the more remote or unmonitored sites - the two bus stations in Anniston, for example, where Freedom Riders were ambushed. These are in alleys in town that could easily be targetted by the yahoos I can't help but believe still live nearby - chastened maybe, quieter, but there nonetheless. And yet...
Other key highlights:
- meeting Johnnie Walker (yes, his real name - on the left at right), a man we met in Kelly Ingram Park where youth gathered to protest in May 1963, only to be attacked by dogs and sprayed by high-power water cannon at the order of the monstrous Bull Connor. These events are commemorated in the Park by the sculptures and other signage (in the pics).
Johnnie generously shared his own story of those days which including him getting shot by a white youth who was his neighbor, and he took us over to see the Eddie Kendrick memorial nearby where we sang a few Temptations tunes, and then to see his buddy's (on the right in the picture) AWESOME barber shop
Rickwood Field - oldest baseball park in the US (beats Fenway by 2 years!)
I'm not under any illusions that the persistent prejudices and the horrific socio-economic consequences of segregation are dispelled or healed - clearly throughout our trip we are seeing communities that remain very deeply divided in their physical/geographical, economic, and psychological layouts. Unquestionably, as all over this country, the forms of separation, discrimination and racism are mainly morphed, buried beneath surfaces, or softened in ways that are perhaps even more troubling and dangerous. But I gotta give Alabama some credit for putting the disgusting and horrific events of history on its walls and streets and in its publications and monuments and buildings, and OUT in the public arena. Though they've already begun to benefit in small ways (in the forms of jobs and maybe some status in the museums and facilities), I hope to see southern black folk start to own even more of the tourist payoffs that are beginning to come from the inspiring stories of resilience and hope that are ready to witness from these sights.
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