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African-American History
A Virtual Tour: Birmingham and Memphis Civil Rights Institutes
by James A. Perry
The Civil Rights Institute of Birmingham and The National Civil
Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel document the struggle of African
Americans against those who refused to acknowledge the incoherence,
injustices, brutalities, and miseries that their racism entailed.
It documents the struggle against many who would not acknowledge
that African Americans are people. By 1955, the year the Civil
Rights Movement began, American racism had become a unity of evil
so consuming that its overthrow required mass resistance and democratic
rebellion akin to that of the American Revolution. Those resisting
on one side and those fighting on the other were as determined
as the principals and soldiers of the Civil War. The history of
The Civil Rights Movement documents this struggle that brought
America sweeping and violent change. The Birmingham Civil Rights
Institutes and the National Civil Rights Museum document this
history compellingly. Each of them is an experience so realistic
that those whose lives were contained by the racism and the struggle
against it find the events they commemorate presented so vividly
that a tour requires them to re-live too much sorrow and the vivid
sorrow of America's inhumanity to African Americans.
Our tour in The Black Collegian draws from the institutes of Birmingham
and Memphis. For full impact, each of them requires a personal
tour. A personal tour will reinforce in the minds of collegians
the inhumanity of racism and the heroic efforts of African Americans
to assert their humanity. A personal tour will awaken collegians
to vigilance. Our Tour is intended to recognize the talents of
the artists who created and who run the Museums. It is intended
to honor the students who struggled unselfishly, tirelessly, and
courageously to acquire freedom.
It is intended to remind us all that our freedom requires vigilance.
Birmingham
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
Dr. Lawrence J. Pijeaux, Executive Director
520 Sixteenth Street North
Birmingham, Al 35203
(205) 328-9696
Fax (205) 323-5219
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute focuses on racism in Birmingham
and the struggle against it. But the scope of its galleries, history,
contemporary exhibits, and mission shows that events in Birmingham
affected the struggle for Civil Rights everywhere. Its perspective
may be summarized as follows: The struggle in Birmingham both
reflected and affected the struggle for Civil Rights in the State,
in America, and in the world; the struggle continues; the recordation
continues; the history must be universally accessible; and the
dissemination of the recordation must use available technology
and keep pace with it. The Birmingham Institute includes specialists
in education and in media, archivists, historians, and computer
experts who make the collections and galleries available to the
world through on-line computers connected to the Birmingham Public
Library and through the Internet. Anyone who has access to the
Public Library files has access to Institute files. The archivists
have a laboratory for stabilizing decaying photographs, three
oral history recording studios, and offices, even for interns.
Executive Director Dr. Lawrence J. Pijeaux keeps the Institute
focused, current, accessible, and very meaningful.
The experience at the Institute is hands-on, including audio-visual
displays, life-size displays, and many sights and sounds. After
a movie, visitors tour the following galleries.
Barriers
Barriers gives the historical context for segregation. This first
gallery shows segregated Birmingham: Drinking Fountains marked
'white' and 'colored'; Two Classrooms, one for white and one for
blacks; A Segregated Lunch Counter with black customers seated;
A Church with pews from the sixteenth Street Baptist Church, bombed
during the Movement; A Courtroom; and Segregation Ordinances.
Much of the impact of the gallery exhibits comes from the life-size
sculptures of people, sculptures detailed but without color. The
picture below is the Carver Theater exhibit. Though Black theaters
brought relief through films by and about African Americans, they
showed popular films of the time.
Confrontation
Confrontation presents notions about races and their separation,
from life-size images engrained on 10-foot tall sheets of glass.
Voices that seem to come from everywhere surround visitors, presenting
many attitudes and ideas about race.
The Movement
Major exhibits: The Road to Montgomery, includes a time line.
A Statue of Rosa Parks: "the great fuse that led to the modern
stride toward freedom." A Replica of the Destroyed Greyhound
Bus carrying Freedom Riders. A Replica of the Birmingham Jail
Cell where Dr. King was kept and where he wrote "Letter from
the Birmingham Jail." The bars are from the actual cell.
King is heard reading the letter. I Have a Dream, a film showing
Dr. King delivering his 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial in Washington, D.C. Birmingham: The World Is Watching,
a film of events of Birmingham in 1963, played on television sets
in the replica of an appliance store of 1963.
Leaving, visitors face Kelly Ingram Park, the place of confrontation
with Birmingham Police Commissioner Eugene 'Bull' Connor and his
policemen with dogs and firemen with hoses. To the left is 16th
Street Baptist Church, bombed during the Movement.
Memphis
The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel
Dr. Juanita Moore, Executive Director
450 Mulberry Street
Memphis TN 38103
(901) 521-9699
The National Civil Rights Museum focuses on events that happened
in Memphis: The Memphis Garbage Strike and the assassination of
Dr. Martin Luther King at The Lorraine Motel. The final exhibit
is the balcony where Dr. King lay dead and the room he used, frozen
as it was when he stepped out of it April 4, 1968. The cars used
by the Movement leaders are still parked on the ground floor,
just beneath the balcony outside of King's Room, Suite 202, the
room he always used when he visited Memphis. The scene is a moment
of history frozen. The exhibits at Memphis guide you through the
historical events that led to the death of Dr. King. As you stand
looking through the window at the place from which the shot came
and at the very spot where Dr. King lay dead, you hear Mahalia
Jackson singing "Precious Lord Take My Hand." The spirit
of Dr. King descends upon you. An African proverb says "The
spirit will not descend without a song." Mahalia's song will
cause the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to descend upon
you as you stand where he died.
The fifteen interactive exhibits in The National Civil Rights
Museum are vignettes capturing the spirit of key events of the
Civil Rights Movement. This spirit is captured through actual
buses, a garbage truck from 1965, life-size sculptures, audio-visual
displays, news clips, television footage, and other sights and
sounds.
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