Memphis

 Our road trip activities and travel time impede my ability to provide as much detail to my entries in the blog as much as I would  like. Therefore I am creating abbreviated placeholders with the intent of finishing them later. This is one of those placeholders.

The current Peabody Hotel first opened its doors in 1925. An early version opened in 1869. Although segregated, Louis Armstrong did perform at the Peabody in 1931. Of note, he dedicated the song I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You to the Memphis Police Department after his arrest one night earlier for the audacity of sitting next to his manager's white wife on a charter bus. Many celebrities have frequented the hotel dating back to Confederate leaders in the hotel's early version.

The hotel remained segregated until its close in 1973 due to financial hardship. After a $25 million major renovation, it reopened integrated in 1981. In addition to its landmark status, it is known for its parading ducks which swim in the fountain in the lobby during the day and march on a red carpet to the elevator which takes them to their night home on the roof.

The duck theme has carried over to manic marketing in the extensive lobby of this luxury hotel. Everything from T-shirts, sweat shirts, $150 canes, rubber duckies, hats, decoys, pillows, and even wine have taken on the duck theme. You will NOT find duck on any of the menus of the fine restaurants at the hotel.

Our view and the hotel photographer view

Birmingham

 Our road trip activities and travel time impede my ability to provide as much detail to my entries in the blog as much as I would  like. Therefore I am creating abbreviated placeholders with the intent of finishing them later. This is one of those placeholders.

On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded under the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church as Sunday services were about to begin. The congregation was knocked to the ground. Four young girls in the basement died. The investigation by the FBI was put to a stop by J. Edgar Hoover. It would take years before the perpetrators were brought to justice with life imprisonment.

Do not forget their names:

Addie Mae Collins

Denise McNair

Carole Robertson

Cynthia Wesley

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is located on the block across the street from the church and across the street from the statues of the little girls. This was another highlight of our travel. I plan to write more about it later.

The Legacy Museum, Montgomery, Alabama

 There is simply not enough time for our road trip activities while keeping the blog up to date. Therefore I am creating abbreviated placeholders with the intent of finishing them later.

The Legacy Museum consists of multiple sites in Montgomery connected by shuttle buses that run every 15 minutes. The main site is the Museum building. The may by the most poignant part of our Civil Rights trip.

I had taken a few pictures at the sculpture garden before I realized that photography was not allowed. I am planning to add additional images later.

Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in the Whites only section of a City of Montgomery bus when no seat was available in the back of the bus. 7053 was the booking number at the time of her arrest.

The Tuskegee Airmen

 There is simply not enough time for our road trip activities while keeping the blog up to date. Therefore I am creating abbreviated placeholders with the intent of finishing them later.

On our drive from Atlanta to Montgomery, Alabama, we stopped at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, the location of Moton Field where black airmen learned to fly during World War II. Before them, there were no Black military pilots.

The pilots trained initially in Piper Cubs

Later, the trained Tuskegee Airmen flew the
P51 Mustang in European combat

Our Last Full Day In Atlanta

 After careful consideration of the options, Jessica and Erica commandeered an Uber driver to take them to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. This is a 30-acre urban oasis that features an amazing indoor tropical collection of Orchids, an enchanting canopy walk, and an iconic 25-foot sculpture of an Earth Goddess. The staff and volunteers were busy installing scarecrows for Halloween. 

Eric stayed close to the hotel and spent most of the time catching up on entries to this blog.

On our final evening, we went to 9 Mile Station, a funky restaurant on the roof of a nine story building. We wandered in a maze for 15 minutes until we finally found our way to the restaurant's first floor gatekeeper. We got in line behind ten other people, and then was informed we had to sign a consent (!?) to ride to the roof. We and at least ten others entered a freight elevator large enough to hold a small city, and up we went. Even when we reached the roof, the restaurant was difficult to find due to the many other rooftop activities.

All that said, it was wonderful to dine on the roof. The drinks and dessert were great. The rest of the meal was forgettable.

The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta

Time Line:

1924, October 1: James Earl Carter, Jr. is born.

1946, June 5: Jimmy Carter graduates with distinction from the Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland.

Ensign Carter serves on the USS Wyoming and the USS Mississippi for two years, and volunteered to serve two more years on the submarine USS Pomfret.

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover selected Carter for the elite developing nuclear propulsion program. He was assigned to Schenectady, New York where he took graduate courses in nuclear engineering and nuclear physics. He worked on nuclear propulsion design for the Atomic Energy Commission. He worked on the design team for the pre-conditioning crew of the nuclear powered USS Seawolf.

1953, July: Lieutenant Carter resigned his commission and left active duty in October 1953, ending his promising career in the Navy. His father had died of cancer. Carter made the decision to return to Plains, Georgia to manage the family peanut farm.

A day at the office

Politics:

After returning to Plains, Jimmy Carter served on boards, including the Sumpter County Board of Education, later serving as its chairman. He won the State Senate race after a contentious election and served from 1963 to 1967.

In 1970, Carter was elected Governor of Georgia. Of note, Jimmy Carter stated in his inaugural address that the time for racial segregation was over. He served as governor from 1971 to 1975.

In 1976, Governor Carter was a dark-horse candidate for the Presidency of the United States against an incumbent. He won!

President Carter's greatest foreign policy accomplishment was negotiating the historic Camp David accords leading to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel which remains in effect today. The biggest problems during his four years were the Iran hostage crisis and stagflation, an unusual combination of inflation and recession.

A day at the office

Much of President Carter's best work was done after his presidency. In 2002, he won the Nobel Peace Prize "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta

While there are numerous institutions have explored the Civil Rights struggle, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR) explores both with an emphasis of the historic and thematic connections between the two. In so doing, the Civil Rights movement is considered in the context of worldwide struggles and actions for Human Rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed on December 10, 1948 as the General Assembly resolutions 217A by the United Nations. A description of the UN document can be found here. A room in the NCCHR is dedicated to delving into these Human Rights and the tragedy of lack of enforcement.

There is so much more, far too much to cover in this blog. The Freedom Riders exhibit honors the multiracial young people, many of them college students, who put their lives on the line in 1961. A lunch counter protest simulation lets visitors absorb how much violence and intimidation the protesters experienced. There is a special exhibit devoted to the 1963 March on Washington where MLK delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech.

Quarter million of us on August 28, 1963

The Problem We All Live With by Norman Rockwell

The artwork of Norman Rockwell was regularly published in the Saturday Evening Post for 43 years. However, the publication had a strict editorial policy that black people could only be shown in subservient roles such as maids or laborers. His last entry in the Saturday Evening Post was a portrait of John F. Kennedy on the cover in December 1963. Frustrated by the policy, Mr. Rockwell moved to Look Magazine under the condition that he would have complete publication autonomy. The painting depicting Ruby Bridges walking to Elementary School in New Orleans escorted by U.S. Marshalls was published as the two page centerfold in the January 1964 issue of Look Magazine. 

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change

WE WILL NOT BE SATISFIED
UNTIL JUSTICE ROLLS DOWN LIKE WATER
AND RIGHTEOUSNESS
LIKE A MIGHTY STREAM

 

Crypts of MLK and CSK

A long reflecting pool done right

Between the two churches stands the Behold Monument by Patrick Morelli commemorating the historic principles that guided the works of Dr. King.

Behold the only thing greater than you

Also inscripted are the words

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. FOR HIS MORAL COURAGE AND NOBILITY OF SPIRIT

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, also known as the King Center, is located next to the old Ebenezer Church and across the street from the new Ebenezer Church.

The Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

The old Auburn Avenue church since 1922 

 In the First Book of Samuel (1 Samuel 7:12), the prophet Samuel sets up and names a large stone Ebenezer.  The stone served as a lasting reminder to celebrate God helping the Israelites to defeat the Philistines. The name Ebenezer has since been adopted as a symbol of God's help and guidance for this and many other houses of worship.

The church was founded in 1886 with thirteen members. It is now categorized as a megachurch with roughly 6,000 weekly attendees. After a few iterations, a much larger church has been created across the street from the Auburn Avenue church. This new building has a new name, the Heritage Sanctuary. The old Auburn Avenue church has been named the Horizon Sanctuary. Both sanctuaries, the house where Martin Luther King, Jr. was born, where he lived, and where he is buried are included in the 39-acre Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park.

Reverend and Senator Raphael Warnock is the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. He frequently returns to Atlanta to give Sunday services. Today, we had the opportunity to hear the sermon of guest preacher, Dr. Thema, Bryant. 

Dr. Bryant received her doctorate in clinical psychology at Duke University, and completed post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical Center's Victims of Violence Program. She is currently serves as a tenured professor at Pepperdine University, and is a former President of the American Psychological Association. Furthermore, she gives a barnburner of a sermon. The topic of her sermon was Trauma, in its broadest sense, including the response to the most distressing and life-threatening events that overwhelm the ability to cope.

The Journey Begins

Today we begin our Civil Rights journey by traveling to Atlanta. After a brief morning walk in Hendersonville, we embarked upon our short trip to Atlanta. We stopped to charge the EV just outside of Atlanta so we would have a "full tank" at our destination. Meanwhile, Jessica's sister Erica caught a flight from SFO to Atlanta to join us for our journey. We called it a day after dinner. Tomorrow is another day.

The Carl Sandburg Home

 

As a poet and biographer, Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) won three Pulitzer prizes. He won two for poetry, and one for history (Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.)

He and his wife Paula chose to escape the Chicago climate by moving to Hendersonville, North Carolina. In 1945, they bought the home they would remain in for the rest of his life. Here, Mr. Sandburg could devote himself to his writing, and Paula could pursue her many interests, especially raising goats on the farm.

There was nothing pretentious about their home. It housed 12,000 books and current issues of numerous issues of newspapers and publications.

Paula kept meticulous files profiling the pedigree of her hundreds of goats. It was a working home, designed around each of their pursuits.

Carl Sandburg died on July 22, 1967 in the company of his wife in her bedroom. His last word was reported to be "Paula." The next year, Paula sold the home as a National Historic site under the condition that the furnishings would remain exactly as they were. Even a cigar butt remains in the ashtray. The United States Department of the Interior has designated roughly 15 goats as a historic herd, descendants of Paula's goats.

Day 2 continued, to Hendersonville, North Carolina

 With the Pink Cadillac in the rearview mirror, we continue our trek south toward Hendersonville, NC to visit our friends, Meg and Irwin. We were close friends in Cleveland. Then they moved to Hendersonville about five years ago. We arrived in time for dinner, and what a spread they had prepared, much of it grown in their garden.

Fresh veggies and BBQ chicken and swordfish shish kabob