2023 Road Trip: Civil Rights Trail: Montgomery, AL (5/6/2023)

Saturday, May 6, 2023
What follows are mostly civil rights-related sites in the city of Montgomery, AL.

Bricklayers' Hall (1954, by the local African-American
bricklayers' union) at 530 S Union St, housed the
headquarters of the Montgomery Improvement Association
(MIA), an organization that formed four days after
Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to change her seat
on a racially-segregated bus

Although the Women's Political Council (WPC) initiated the boycott of the Montgomery bus system, they enlisted the support of community leaders, including having black ministers spread the word during Sunday sermons. The community leaders and ministers then organized the MIA on the first day of the boycott, and planned transportation assistance to those who needed it. The first president of MIA was Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 382 days, before the US Supreme Court upheld the federal district court ruling that the segregation laws for city buses was unconsitutional. However, the story continues with the vicious backlash of shootings, attacks on Black bus riders, bombings of Black churches, and passing city ordinances to insure segregation in recreational venues.

We were passing by ... the First White House of the
Confederacy (1835, in Italianate style), which was moved from
its original location in 1921 (a Roadside America attraction)

Across the street was the Alabama State Capitol (1850-1851)

The Civil Rights Memorial (1989, by Maya Lin)

On the circular water table is a timeline of the civil rights
movement beginning in 1954 with Brown vs Board of Education
and ending in 1968 with Martin Luther King Jr’s death (KSS) 

Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church
(est 1877 in a slave trader's pen, current
church built 1883-1889); the 20th pastor
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr served 1954-1960

Former Greyhound Bus Station (1951, by W S Arrasmith
in Streamline Moderne style) is now the Freedom Rides
Museum (2011) that commemorates the day in May, 1961
when the Freedom Riders (black and white, male and female,
and none older than 22 years) stepped off the bus and were
assaulted by a mob of white protestors with bats and clubs

The Freedom Riders were prepared to meet mob violence with non-violence and courage, and in fact, many had written farewell letters and wills for their families. Their goal was to end racial segregation on public transportation. After incidents in Anniston, AL where the Riders managed to escape the bus when it was burning after being bombed, only to be brutally beaten by a mob; and in Birmingham, AL the Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor did not post police protection at a Trailways station, so that the mob was free to beat the Riders. The Riders who continued to Montgomery were being escorted by the police under the orders of the US Attorney General Robert F Kennedy. Yet the police abandoned the bus before it reached the Greyhound Bus Station. By now photographs of the burning bus and bloodied riders appeared on the front pages of newspapers across the country and around the world. Yet it was not until November 1, 1961 when the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) issued regulations banning segregation in interstate travel.

Violata Pax/Wounded Peace (2006, by Fred "Nall" Hollis,
erected at Troy University in 2022) (KSS)

Rosa Parks Museum (2000, by Sherlock, Smith and Adams)
is built on the site of the Empire Theater, in front
of which Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing
to give her seat to a white man

Rosa Parks: Metal Surprise (2021,
by Ian Mangum) reveals a portrait of
"The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement"
(at the site she was arrested)
(a Roadside America attraction)

If you are not standing in the proper spot,
you cannot see the face of Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks: Metal Surprise is a second version created by Ian Mangum, after his first located at Maxwell Air Force Base. Rosa Parks worked at then Maxwell Field in 1941 as a seamstress at the on-base hotel.

Are You Listening Mural (2020, by Milton Madison)
incorporates the names of Montgomery citizens who have
wrongfully lost their lives at the hands of the local police (KSS)

Court Square Fountain (1885) at a location that the city's
slave market, and now is encircled with "Black Lives Matter"

1 Dexter Avenue (1850, by
Stephen Decatur Button in Renaissance
Revival style) on Court Square is not
where Rosa Parks was arrested, but likely
she did wait at a bus stop here after
leaving work at the Montgomery Fair
department store a few buildings away

Kent and Tamiko with Rosa Parks Bus Stop
(2019, by Clydetta Fulmer)
(a Roadside America attraction)

Next: The National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum.