Learning from Within

Boxes, clothes, pots, spices, hangers, condiments, strew in the living room as I observed the sanctity and chaos of my home base one last time prior to heading down concrete into the unknown. Scribbles of directions led me around states, hikes, campgrounds, monuments, town, cities, freeways and museums. The Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, Alabama was preceded by the governor hashing out his intent for the upcoming election, what he was going to do for the middle class. Tom, a local lawyer I’d met five hours, 2 museums into my day, thought otherwise. Birmingham had no middle class, there was the poor he pointed out as he guided me to fields of houses with few windows, and damaged doors, and backyards that were needle turfs.

“Those folks made about $15.000 a year.”

“And those, pointing up a freeway 15 minutes out of town make about $100.000 dollars.”

So you tell me who the governor is speaking about?  He is protecting the whites, and I am white so I know the game he is playing. These folks don’t have an advocate, they left here with the abolition of slavery and they ain’t never looking back. Tom was a lawyer and court judge on his way to the courthouse across the street from where my car had decided to die. One of the window wasn’t shutting and try as I did to lever my fingers into the socket to pull it up, it wasn’t budging.

“Can’t leave your car unlocked here, there'll be nothing left.”

Just as my trip had begun it couldn’t be over so quickly, I had so much to learn.

Tom leaned up again the curb and began to tell me his story. 70 years old, born in Birmingham just outside of town and followed in his father footsteps into law. He left here with his family when he was in this late 30’s and headed to Seattle because like his father he had been threatened by too many white that wanted the status quo to remain.

“That’s where I learned about the south. I was so close to it I couldn’t see through the forest. I realized how I had been behaving and I favored desegregation, but I couldn’t see a path through it until I understood some basic facts and it was in Seattle I learned that not all blacks and whites reside and exists as we do down south. Many communities co-exist, and quite amiably.  

My first inclination was to judge the judge, yet the longer he drawled on the more sense he made to someone from the outside. Being white had its advantages but he had been brought up in segregation and as mentioned earlier, it was more of the north vs. the south mentality that was hard to overcome than the black vs. the white, they just happen to be in the south when the war broke out leaving them stranded with the outcome.

I’d entered the museum having read many books over many years I felt confident in some areas, what was most striking was the fight and the good fight they put up for decades, and it doesn't reside today. Wall after wall went into great details about simple folks like you and me, seeking out an existence as a nurse, carpenter, or the owner of a diner. The difference being the lack of opportunity from the time you are born many people from slavery well into the next century, knew their plight,  like the caste system of India, the challenges laid in the political structure that allowed no growth, no breathing room, no hope, no optimism, no faith, no prospect that something different could be exist. From the education system to buying groceries, all sectors were and are segregated. And, like Canadians they do it politically correct now, but unlike is their history.

The blacks attend public school were problems arise daily, the white mainly attend Christian or private schools. The restaurants, grocery stores, movie theatres, and churches are deeply segregated. Most politicians like it that way….. keep them at bay…. Without rocking any boats and our society will work fine.

The problem is after speaking with Lucy, Jenny the attendants at the museum and Jeffrey a 69 year old man, things haven’t changed. Yes, you can get a job, but look where I am working they all said, low paying jobs that don’t allow us to climb any ladders.

A Belgium gentleman and I listened and  watched the video the video prior to entering the museum. We chatted briefly of what had transpired in his country and I so wanted to spend the day with someone, anyone. This was reality and seeing it in front of you in the museum and outside on the streets was like “Back to the Future” the difference was the world thought that the progress was perfectly acceptable. It wasn’t, it was nothing short of slavery in the 21^st. century.

The African American Museum left me staggering out of it bewildered at how humans can treat one another with such distain. This was someone’s child, I always thought about in school, even kids that drove me to gray hair, they were someone’s love, someone babe, and they deserved my respect.

Tom went through all aspects of society in that hour and landed on football. I’d had the misfortune of tuning into the 24 hour football radio show and been aghast in laughter at the stupidity of it. Alright, I’m not a footy, but how many times can men analyze someone's pass, their punt, the outcome, the stats, without boredom killing the soul? The message today and several days thereafter was about the men that had beaten their wives. Tom admitted as did the radio hosts that if they opened up the real truth, Pandora’s Box would never close, and football would be forever gone. It is accepted that many players have affairs, hit their wives, have moments with young boys, and a blind eye is placed on all of it, for the love of the game. And, the spectators are not at the mercy, they are the ones in control, in the driver’s seat, and yet they now not.

Tom spoke of a young boy who had received a scholarship to a high ranking University for Football and had recently been caught stealing King Crab legs and under ware from a local supermarket.

“The kid was from here, but what does he get for a role model, some hyped up sport player that makes millions of dollars and doesn’t have a clue how to behave. So what do they expect, he’s 19, never had a dad, absent mom and he’s making mistakes, everyone does, but they haven’t been given a full scholarship, been assisted with all his classes cause he couldn’t pass them on his own, but he can play ball."

“We are sick when it comes to football, American’s are willing to kill a kid’s future for their team to win. Here tonight at our stadium the most hatred rivalry is happening and whichever team loses they will go down hard, not only in the ranking, but the media will choose several boys to rat out and their lives are made hell until the next game. It is a disease that needs to be stopped, but we the spectators are the only one who have control of that. STOP going to games.”

Man did I want to go to a game that night, but being a women, there was no chance that it would it be wise or safe. My sparse hotel room and meeting up with the curator of the second museum took most of the evening, it took all of it, as I was emotionally drained.