How do you get back in the mood to travel and explore after several days of grim history of recent and ongoing events? How about a trip to a defunct steel and iron company? The weather was good and I do love exploring, so I headed to Sloss Furnaces, a National Historic Landmark.
You can choose how to approach this post. You can focus on the photos, focus on the text or both.
It operated as a pig iron-producing blast furnace from 1882 to 1971. After closing, it became one of the first industrial sites – and the only blast furnace – in the U.S. to be preserved and restored for public use.
Putting on my geographer’s hat, I asked myself why they would produce pig iron here. It turns out that all the ingredients needed were located nearby – iron ore, coal and limestone, and Colonel James Withers Sloss (C.S.A.) knew it.
Prior to the war, Sloss had become one of the richest men in Alabama, thanks to his plantation and his store in Athens, Alabama. After the war, he became president of the railroad line from Tennessee to Alabama, and convinced them to finish a line of railroad track between Birmingham and Decatur.
Having secured the kind of transportation that made production of iron feasible, he also secured iron ore mines.
They had the location, transportation and raw materials. What else did they need?
That’s right. They needed labor.
Where do you suppose the laborers came from? After all, slavery had been abolished with the enactment of the 13th Amendment in 1865. People now had to be paid for their labor.
Except as a “punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”
And, oddly enough, Blacks found themselves convicted of random and specious “crimes” and re-enslaved.
Alabama began convict leasing in 1846 and outlawed it in 1928. It was the last state to formally outlaw it. The revenues derived from convict leasing were substantial, accounting for roughly 10% of total state revenues in 1883, surging to nearly 73% by 1898.
It’s hard to go very far “down south” without evidence of horrendous injustices.
When you’re a tourist, it’s easy to identify them.
As you move around, you look at things and ask yourself, “What is that? What happened? Why did it happen? Why here?”
It’s easy to overlook things you see every day back home.
During my research for my last blog post, I learned a new term: dark tourism. According to the article from the Washington Post, dark tourism refers to visiting places where some of the darkest events of human history have unfolded. This portion of my travels has been loaded with dark tourism.
Now, I was always under the impression that the 16 sticks of dynamite were exploded on the 16th Street side of the church, but in refreshing my memory in order to write about my visit, it seems that the bomb was planted under the front steps.
The church offers tours, and I had come to take a tour. I had some time before it began, so I started by looking around the exterior.
I always appreciate when there is a cornerstone.
It’s nice that they give the architect and the builders their due.
On the 16th Street side there is a memorial.
The names of the four girls killed in the bombing are listed.
I figured it was time to head inside.
The altar was simple, yet elegant.
There were many lovely stained glass windows.
The sun made it a little difficult to photograph entire windows, but the details really stood out.
The colors were so vibrant.
It was spring, and that must mean it’s field trip season down south, too.
The kids sat quietly. Some looked at their phones and others read the materials in the pockets on the backs of the pews.
I listened to the presentation. I must admit that I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew about the event. It makes you wonder if we are ever going to treat each with the respect all people deserve.
After the last few days, I was feeling really bogged down by it all.
I was glad to get back out into the sunshine.
I crossed the street to tour Kelly Ingram Park. It’s known informally as West Park, but it was named to honor Osmond Kelly Ingram, and Alabama native who was the U.S, Navy’s first enlisted man to die in World War I.
The first statue I came across honored the four girls killed in the bombing. While the photos I have seen make them look as if they are pressed under glass, this statue is so full of life.
I loved this detail that was included. The information is there, but it doesn’t define the girls.
“A Love that Forgives”
The Sermon Marquee Proclaimed at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963.
A seemingly usual Sunday. However on this day at 10:22 am, four young girls,: three 17 year olds and one 11 year old were murdered by a bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan. A fifth girl, a survivor, was blinded in her right eye. Two young boys were also murdered that day inn two different locations in the city.
Six children lost. All in a single Sunday – a day that moved the conscience of our United States.
I set off to explore the park. I appreciated how common materials were used to create a beautiful oasis.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
After that, there were memorials to the young people who suffered through the protests in 1963, under the merciless hands of Bull Connor.
Can you imagine a water cannon?
I came across a younger tree with a plaque nearby.
Those young people taking part in the Children’s Crusade didn’t wait.
In the middle of the park is a reflecting pool.
I imagine that it was too early in the season for the water to be turned on.
After walking through the water cannons and the reflecting pool at the center of the park, the path lead though the dogs that Bull Connor set on the children.
This is truly the freedom walk that many had to take.
The inscription on the base says:
This sculpture is dedicated to the foot soldiers of the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement.
With gallantry, courage and great bravery, the face the violence of attack dogs, high powered water hoses and bombings. They were the fodder in the advance agains injustice. Warriors of a just cause, they represent humanity unshaken in their firm belief in their nation’s commitment to liberty and justice for all.
We salute these men and women who were the soldiers of this great cause.
Richard Arrington, Jr.
Mayor of Birmingham
May 1995.
Incidentally, Richard Arrington was the first Black mayor of Birmingham.
I continued along the path and came across this group of boys from a field trip enjoying their boxed lunches. I kind of think their teacher came and had them get down from the sculpture. They just made such a charming photo.
Incidentally, this is the work of art they were sitting on.
By now, I was getting hungry and I decided to set out and find some lunch.
Across the street, there was a statue honoring Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a tireless and fearless worker for social justice.
His statue is outside the Birmingham Civil Right Institute, which bestows the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Right Award. Apparently it is an interpretive museum, but I didn’t go in. I needed to find some lunch. I asked the security guard for a recommendation, and he directed me to a place on Fourth Avenue.
I guess Green Acres is the place to be!
I looked over the menu and placed my order.
Then I waited with the rest of the customers.
This food is all “to-go”, so I took it back to my car to eat.
The next day, I headed over to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice , which is informally known as the National Lynching Memorial. It had opened just the year before, in April 2018. I remembered hearing about it one news programs at the time, and I was eager to see how the artists involved had created a work of art that commemorates the black victims of lynching in the United States, many of them nameless.
It was founded by the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative and it is intended to focus on and acknowledge past racial terrorism and advocate for social justice in America.
I arrived and parked in the lot next to the headquarters and started over to the memorial, built on six acres near the site of a former market where enslaved African Americans were sold. Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) was inspired by the examples of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. His goal was to create a single memorial to the victims of white supremacy in the United States.
Researchers studied the records in counties and parishes across the United States and documented around 4,400 racial terror lynchings in the Post-Reconstruction era between 1877 and 1950. From what I had heard at the time of the opening, those hanging rectangular prisms inside the memorial represented each of the counties where a documented lynching took place in the United States. On each piece, in addition to the name of the county, is the name of the state and the names of the victims and the dates of their murders. If the name is not known, “unknown” is engraved on the panel.
As you approach the memorial square, you pass educational signs that give background to the injustice that is documented in the memorial. I recommend wearing comfortable shoes and planning to take the time to read them. If you are having trouble reading them on site, take photos.
Rather than a synopsis of the material, I am including my photos in this post.
As the path to the memorial square winds around the grounds, you come to the first of three sculptures, Nkyinkyim by Ghanaian artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo. Nkyinkyim means “twisted”, taken from a Ghanaian proverb, “life is a twisted journey”.
While I had seen the famous illustrations of slave ships and their cargo, like this one, they never conveyed the terror of the victims like Akoto-Bamfo’s work of art did.
By Plymouth Chapter of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress
I continued past more educational material.
And still more.
It is long, but worth the time it takes to read it.
Really, if this is too much for you to read, you can come back to it later. It’ll still be here.
As hard as it is to slow down and walk and read when you have a goal in mind, when you are there, it serves to focus and heighten the experience.
At last, I reached Memorial Square.
And then I am inside.
There are 805 of these coffin-shaped boxes.
It is overwhelming.
I left the structure.
I went over to Monument Park.
I wonder how many counties have claimed their duplicate monument?
It is overwhelming.
How many?
The Ida B. Wells Memorial Grove was interesting. There was no information about it that I saw nearby, although the memorial webpage describes it as a “reflection space.” In a few years, the trees will shade the area and make it a lovely respite from the sun.
Ida B. Wells is a historical American figure that we should all know about. It is particularly appropriate that she is honored here, as she was a journalist who wrote about lynchings in real time. What courage that must have taken.
I wound my way around to this sculpture grouping, Guided By Justice by Dana King.
King’s sculpture honors the participants in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She chose to depict three women: a grandmother, a teacher, and a pregnant woman. Her sculpture aims to have views reconsider the mythology of the heroines of the bus boycott. The focus on Rosa Parks draws attention away from the thousands of other black people who were central in the success of the bus boycott.
The footprints on the ground represent a call to action for others to join them in the cause.
Hank Willis Thomas’ sculpture, Raise Up, is a depiction of policing in America. The sculpture depicts ten Black men encased on concrete, with their hands up and their eyes closed. His artistic choice to encase these men in concrete, some with their heads sunken in, demonstrates the lack of control and autonomy black people have over their own bodies. Though most of their bodies are covered and they are unable to move, their hands are clearly visible, referencing the many stories of unarmed Black men being shot and brutalized by police.
The National Memorial uses Thomas’ sculpture as a connection to the present, a kind of call to action that the fight for justice and liberation is ongoing.
INVOCATION
The wind brings your names.
We will never dissever your names
nor your shadow beneath each branch and tree.
The truth comes in on the wind, is carried by the water.
There is such a thing as truth. Tell us
how you got over. Say, Soul look back in wonder.
Your names were never lost,
each name a holy word.
The rocks cry out –
call out each name to sanctify this place.
Sounds in human voices, silver or soil,
a moan, a sorrow song,
a keen, a cackle, harmony,
a hymnal, handbook, chart,
a sacred text, a stomp, and exhortation.
Ancestors, you will find us still in cages,
despised and disciplined.
You will find us still mis-named.
Here you will find us despite.
You will not find us extinct.
You will find us here memories and storied.
You will find us here mighty.
You will find us here divine.
You will find us where you left us, but not as you left us.
Here you endure and are luminous.
You are not lost to us.
The wind carries sorrows, sighs, and shouts.
The wind brings everything. Nothing is lost.
Elizabeth Alexander
I headed inside the building to see what I might see. I wondered about the names that were displayed here.
This plaque explains why these names have be singled out.
Inside there were rows and rows of soil collected at lynching sites.
There may have been more to see inside. I’m not sure, but I knew I had hit my limit for this part of my visit. I needed to have some food, something to drink and a bit of a break. I looked up restaurants in the area and ended up near Court Square.
This is taken from one of the markers in the square:
“At the intersection of Commerce Street and Dexter Avenue, Court Square is arguable the most historic location in America. As the center of 19th century Southern economic and political power, Montgomery’s Court Square was host to a massive slave market and the location from which the telegram that ignited the Civil War at Fort Sumter was sent.
Less than a century later, Court Square and downtown Montgomery was the epicenter of the civil rights movement, first with the Montgomery Bus Boycott which began December 5, 1955. Ten years later the civil rights struggle and Montgomery’s non-violent protests culminated in the Selma to Montgomery March as the marchers took the last steps up Dexter Avenue to the state capitol.
This duality of histories is the heart of Montgomery’s past. A citynwith a past as complex, difficult, and important to the American story can often struggle under the weight. Today, Montgomery honors its past all aspects of its history while looking to the future.”
The fountain was built on top of an artesian well that was used long before Europeans came to the area.
What is an artesian well?
I’m glad you asked. An artesian well is a well where the water is forced to the surface by groundwater pressure. You don’t need to pump it up. On the other hand, a spring occurs when the surface of the land dips below the water table.
Oh, you didn’t ask? Moving on…
This fountain was erected in 1885, although they are not sure who was the designer. The sculpture of Hebe at the top of the fountain was likely modeled by a sculpture by Antonio Canova. Nearly identical fountains can be found at Fountain Square in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Court Square in Memphis. They were cast by J.L. Mott Ironworks of New York.
My attention was drawn to this building covered with portraits.
It appears to be a mixed use office and retail space.
And, you have to believe that they are, indeed, the dream and the hope for the future.
