Visit to Birmingham

 ****Warning Long**** Part One Oct 18, 2020

My sweet friends, I am not sure I can do this outing justice that we had day before yesterday,  but I am going to try because it needs the honor it deserves. The one outing my daughter wanted to do was Birmingham and we were an hour away.

She wanted to see the Civil Rights District so she made it a girls day out. Jenny had to work so Wendi, Cassandra, Tricia, Sis and I started on our day trip. 

The Museums were closed but they had an outdoor park dedicated to the struggle for equality. It was located at the 16th Street Baptist Church where the KKK bombed the church and killed the 4 little girls that we all hear about.  We don't hear about the two little boys murdered that day and the story about how it came to be.

This story is going to be given in parts. I am not sure how I can handle how it is going to pour out of me but I will share as much as I can remember to honor those gone before. 

We arrived at the park and could immediately feel the reverence in this place. They had a website that you could go to that gave an audio of the different monuments and pictures that they have in the park. They depict the journey and the many tragedies that 

Black people have encountered to freedom but we encountered our own tour guide, a Black gentleman in the park. 

I am kind of intuitive and I asked this gentleman if he knew anything about this time and if he would tell us what he knew, if it wasn't too painful. This beautiful human being spent the next half hour pouring out his heart about the memories of that day and days to come. 

 

This is where the footsteps of Martin Luther King and Reverend Frederick Lee Shuttlesworth or "Fred" as people called him in that day took steps to change the world. 

Fred was a freedom fighter. He was the one that invited Dr King

 to come to Birmingham to speak to the people and help them in their shared struggle. 

He was fighting the fight in Birmingham and his church  ( Bethel Baptist Church Collegeville 1897) had been bombed 5 times before the 16th street tragedy happened. 

Our guide was Anthony or "Tony" as people called him. He never gave us a last name. He said he had been searching for work that morning but the last ticket had been given out at the unemployment office so he was waiting til after lunch to try again. 

To say he was incredible was a huge understatement. I wish so much that I could share all 30 minutes with all of you and

with the world, because these stories need to never be forgotten and they sure as heck aren't taught in schools. 

We started at the sculpture of the four girls. Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair. 

They have an actual shoe of one of the girls, the eyeglasses of Carole Robertson lay at her knees on the monument. That horrific day  of Sept, 15, 1963 started like any other day at the church. There was going to be a greeting party and the 4 little girls were dressing up that day.

They wanted to look their best to be at the door of the church greeting people as they arrived to celebrate the Church's "Youth Day." 

They were all upstairs in the bathroom, adjusting their Sunday dresses with large bows, doing their hair and Addie Mae was reading quietly as Carole Bustled about tying bows and straightening hair. They were so proud to be chosen for this great honor and took every care with their appearance. They finally finished and "Cindy" or Cynthia said it was time to go. Little did they know what awaited them as they  came downstairs from the bathroom and arrived at the  front door of the church. 

Sometime before the days event, members of the KKK, a terrorist organization, skulked up to the side church steps and planted 19 sticks of dynamite at the basement door, knowing full well that people were going to be killed and wanting that to happen. It was a premeditated act that killed 4 children and injured up to 22 individuals. (I have seen numbers from 14 to 22 so I am not sure of the discrepancies in the counts.)

The two teenaged boys shot that day were named Virgil Ware who was born in 1949 and Johnny Robinson who was born in 1947.

Johnny was not near the church but was in a group of boys that were told to disperse by the police. There are reports of the boys 

throwing rocks at the police cars and the police officer leveled a shotgun at the youths. There are several different tales of how

the shooting occurred. It was ruled accidental by the police which was an all white force and some of them were rumored to be in the KKK. 

The Four Spirits Sculpture features the four girls with 6 doves released on the top honoring the girls plus the two teenagers that were killed that day.  A day that was supposed to be a day of peace for all Youth and it turned into a day of death. 

Cynthia Wesley holds an opened book that has the Poem entitled, "The Stolen Child"  by William Butler Yeats

Come away, O human child

To the waters and the wild

With a Faery, Hand in Hand

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand 

A fact that he told me that I had never heard  before was that Condeleeza Rice was a classmate of the four girls and was responsible for many of the signs around the church honoring the struggle and that of the people that helped to gain freedom. 

Part two will continue our journey through the park and I hope that you enjoy coming along and hearing Tony's story.  All of the above story came from him and our pictures that we took that day. I love you all and pray that you all continue to be safe as we walk this journey together. Always, Kimmee

(Wendi and I took the pictures featured here.)