Alabama

Alabama - you just can't help but say it and drag it out as long a possible, can you?! Four full syllables and then some! The main drawcard for Alabama was learning more abobut the civil rights aspect. We were going to go to the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery (she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus and kick-started a lot of activity in 1955) but it was closed the day we planned to visit, so we took a bit of a detour and headed north to Birmingham....it was the best detour we have taken in the whole trip. Birmingham was infamously known as "Bombingham" during the 50s and 60s due to the literally hundreds of bombings that took place during the civil rights movement, and the Institute was a phenomenal tribute to the movement that left us both incredibly moved. There was so much we learned, read, and saw (including a geniune Ku Klux Klan uniform that still gives me goosebumps, and a cross that was burned in someone's front yard in 1994), but it can only be done justice by visiting it in person. If you want, though, just check out Birmingham on wikipedia and it will tell you lots more.

The 16th Avenue Baptist Church - in September 1963 the church was bombed on a Sunday morning, killing 4 young girls (later that same day, two boys were killed in separate, racially-motivated incidents). The Church was a main base for the civil rights activities for a number of years, and it was really inspiring to see it still being used as a Church today. The Church is opposite the Institute and across the road from the park that some of the more grown up readers of the blog may remember as the park where the police turned water hoses and dogs onto students protesting in the park. The statue in the foreground is of Martin Luther King, Jnr.

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute - an amazing tribute to the civil rights movement and most definitely worth the visit.