It’s Black History Month – a time to see, learn and understand. Two of the best places in the country to do that are Birmingham and Washington, DC. The former was the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement, a place of pain, and — ultimately — gain.
These days Birmingham has a black mayor. The wounds of the 1960s have healed. But to understand, to really fathom, how far we’ve come as a nation you owe it to yourself to visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. The institute shows the interplay of black and white Alabamians from the late 19th Century to present. A series of galleries tells the daily tales of ordinary men and women caught up in extraordinary times.
Exhibits transport you back to the bleak days of the early sixties when this place was called “Bombingham,” and the fear was palpable. If that’s the most wrenching exhibit, the Processional Gallery is the most inspiring. It displays life-size figures representing all ages and races to tell the tale of just how far we’ve come.
Travel north from Birmingham to Washington, to the first stirrings of The National Museum of African American History. While the museum won’t open until 2015, you can get a preview of the scope of the place today by visiting the second floor of the National Museum of American History. That’s where you’ll see the exhibit Thomas Jefferson: Liberty & Slavery.
It explores the issue of how the man who authored the Declaration of Independence could also own slaves; of how 20 percent of the population of a new nation predicated on liberty and equality could live in bondage.
Get off the couch, on the road and see where this journey takes you.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Image: kschlot1)
