To be honest, with how racially charged our society
currently is, when we visit historical sites dealing with race, I find it challenging to keep my emotions in check while sifting through all the information presented. I am black. And I am white. When I look at my family tree, I can trace
the black side back to the south. My white relatives emigrated from Holland to Minnesota and lived in small Dutch communities fairly isolated from the racial tensions of the civil rights movement. Maybe because I am 1/2 and 1/2, I grew up never hearing prejudices from either side.
The pictures I took are not so great, but the information they represent is moving of you can get past the glare.
Seeing these representations of segregation invoke feelings of shock. My dad went to segregated schools growing up. He graduated only 2 years after Brown v Board of Education, but prior to integration. I
mmediately after graduation, he moved to California where there were fewer racial barriers. Whenever I see "segregation", I think of my dad and how different his childhood was.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was very bright (attending college early), the son of a pastor, and, seemingly, the right man in the right place at the right time. He was pastoring a church in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. In the days that followed, he was elected leader of an organized civil rights movement. Later, he and his wife flew to India and spent a month studying Mohandas Ghandi's passive resistance methods.
After years of persevering through persecution, death threats and attempts on the lives of himself and his family, King was assassinated. Only four days later, his brave wife took his place with their sons walking at the head of a march that King was scheduled to lead.
MLKj definitely seems like the right man (bright, level headed, choosing peaceful means) in the right place (Montgomery, AL) at the right time (when Rosa Parks created an opportunity).
The only ranger on duty today was blind. We all were given a firsthand lesson in checking our own prejudices as this man was able to accomplish all the regular ranger tasks set before him. When he signed junior ranger books, he did ask me to place his hand in the correct spot. Definitely a u
nique experience.
This MLKj timeline in the King Center across the street was a fantastic wrap up to all we had just learned in the visitor center. I have grown fond of timelines. They are at so many of the places we visit. Having a basic timeline in my mind (thanks to homeschooling with CC), and adding to it regularly, enable me to better understand and appreciate what we learn!
burial place (above) and birth home (below)
The church where MLKj first preached and where his dad was pastor.
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