Georgia on our minds

Yet, amazingly, not on our radio - how did I neglect my #1 musician's song during our travels through Georgia?  I didn't even hit up the Godfather of Soul! I did play some Allmans though.

Atlanta!

MLK National Historic Site - AMAZING. The museum, gravesite, and childhood home are fittingly grand yet warm and welcoming for the inspiring man. The  Auburn Ave Neighborhood where we also toured MLK Childhood Home is fascinating. He was born and raised in a beautiful home any upper-middle class American would be fortunate to reside in. Yet as a consequence of segregation, the neighborhood was made up of black residents of ALL means, meaning that from his backyard he could miss a baseball toss from his brother and have the ball roll under one of several 3-room shacks lining one side of his yard. We asked about this and the report was that the neighbors were close - to the point that any parent could (and would) spank any kid for misbehavior.

After a day full of MLK and his family, we headed to the south side to meet up with my student Mariyah Sabir at her father's soul food restaurant in College Park, "Big Daddy's." I innocently (ok, maybe not-so-innocently) asked her where the nickname came from, and she gave me the appropriate diplomatic response - "well, you'll know when you meet him." And meet him we did - we went to visit him at a second restaurant site about 15 minutes away he was opening in only two more days so we were very appreciative he could spare the time. While I would say he had me at "Mariyah" who is a committed community fellow working with adult learners in Chicopee, MA, he had me even more when he greeted me with a hug and the words "Gimme some love, Professor!"  His food was awesome and we all hope the new store is a big success. Looking forward to seeing him at graduation next May too. BTW, I think I could plausibly claim that nickname too...

On our way out, we visited the home of Alonzo Herndon, a self-made wealthy black man who made his money without virtually any formal education, and with many racial and socio-economic barriers in his way. Mr Herndon was the son of a slave and her master (from whom he drew his name) born just prior to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865. He left home at 18 having saved 11 bucks (a lot in those days) to learn to cut hair, open his own shop, and eventually establish several businesses. In Atlanta his main marks were a white-only barber shop in which the workers were all black, from which he gained much of his education (learning from the businessmen who came through), and...The Atlanta Life Insurance Company. All this yielded him the income to build a stately mansion now amidst the campuses (Morehouse, Spelman, etc.) on the north side of town. We toured the home and were blown away at what he'd managed to accomplish.

Both the mansion and the MLK site didn't permit pics but you can google them both to see and learn more.