I came to bear witness.
And in doing so confirmed what I already knew: they lied to us. The diluted version of the beginnings of these United States was designed to make the sinister appear less heinous. It was intended to create an illusion of liberator, when in fact oppressor was the reality. As a child, my classmates and I were nourished with one-sided “facts” presented in books authored by people who were clearly on the winning side of the equation.
Back then it hadn’t occurred to me to question what I’d read. After all, if it was being taught to us in school, then it must have merit and it must be truth. Which brings me to my adult realization (decades later) – history is written based on how it is remembered. Or, more precisely – based on who is telling it.
When viewed through the lens of exploiters and conquerors it is easy to forget that a coin has two sides. It then becomes imperative to unlearn what one was taught and to gather as much information as possible in unmasking such fallacies ingrained in us. By intentionally and conveniently omitting our stories, those deemed “powerful” were determined to perpetuate their narrative. One in which the subjugated populations, the exploited people, the “have nots” might forever be viewed as less than human.
My journey to defy those myths and re-educate myself brought me to this part of the deep south.
Peace meets Violence
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Refusing to give up her seat to a white man, Mrs. Rosa Parks became the face synonymous with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Those two iconic symbols sum up the extent of what I remember learning about this painful and crucially significant period of the struggle for racial equality.
Arriving in Birmingham I soon realized how biased my schooling had been. Not once were we shown videos of the peaceful marches on City Hall, of the lunch counter sit-ins where young Black students sat quietly knowing how unlikely they were to be acknowledged by Anglo wait staff, let alone be served a meal. I have no recollection of an in class discussion about the tactics authorities used against those who dared to demand their basic human rights: attacks by police dogs, fire hoses shooting high pressure water cannons, relentless clubbing by authorities, handcuffing then jailing. All of this in efforts to maintain segregation and to dissuade Black folks from pursuing the struggle.
At the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute I gleaned deeper insight about this era. Sitting in a darkened screening room, watching a short film as an introduction into the horrors of segregation, tears caressing my cheeks, I wondered how could this have even happened? When it drew to an end, I got up and walked over to the elderly gentleman who had a disinfectant bottle in his hand, a cloth in the other. Reading my pain, he smiled at me. Returning his smile, then noticing his name tag (Oliver Harper), I said “Hello Sir, thank you for your service, Mr. Harper.” He thanked me and told me to enjoy my visit. Our brief interaction was my way of telling him I see you and I am here in solidarity.
“You are standing on a site were enslaved people were warehoused”
Contemplating the Unimaginable
From Birmingham, I drove south. It was a Sunday and so, not surprisingly there was a quietness on the streets of downtown Montgomery, few cars on the road, mostly deserted sidewalks. Making my way around the court square I found my mind in a most somber place. This section of Commerce Street held such unimaginable misery for so many innocent souls. The contrast of what those days of trade must have been like versus the serenity surrounding me as I sat on a bench facing the fountain at the court square – the trickling water of the fountain under a sunny blue sky. All I could think of as I sat on that bench was how terrified they must have been: children taken from their mothers, husbands separated from their wives, families torn apart.
None of it could be undone. The oppressors, once again proved victorious. And I, once again found myself crying.
******
I was early for my timed entry into The Legacy Museum, but the security officer who greeted me said it was ok. I just needed to have my temperature checked and wait for a few other visitors to leave the building before they allowed me in. Within a few minutes, I passed through the metal detector and showed my electronic ticket to the woman at the admission booth. But first I needed to use the ladies room and was instructed where to find it. Pushing open the huge leaden door, immediately to my right was a large picture of a child facing the wall of his jail cell. His slippers too large for his small feet, he stood gazing at the dark wall in front of him. That was just the beginning of the heart wrenching images my eyes would behold in the next four hours.
Returning to the front, the woman explained where I’d start my self-guided tour. I remember thinking how friendly she and the other staff members were. It put a brief smile on my face. Then, taking a deep breath, I walked away from her over to the first wall. I can’t recall all details, but I remember it depicted the states involved, the routes of “commerce,” then red columns representing the numbers of people traded. Soon I could feel my eyes wet again. To fathom that I was occupying the same space that once served as a storing place of human beings that would ultimately be sold was just unbearable.
They Were Babies
Leaving the introductory section of the museum, walking down a darkened pathway, I heard a beautiful voice: that of a woman singing in what sounded like an opera soprano. This is where the holograms are located. Each is set up inside of a cell and one approaches the bars, the hologram would appear….each sharing their story. A man about 30ish begins to sing in a voice so sultry and beautiful it makes me want to believe his story has just as beautiful an ending. I stop at each one and listen. A woman shares her fears, another whose voice is so soft I am unable to decipher her words. Still, I listen and do not take my eyes off of her until the hologram disappears.
Towards the far end of this section. I approached a cell and bringing my face up to the bars I wait for the hologram to appear. Soon, a little girl, appearing no more than 4 or 5 years old quietly stands beside her older brother who seemed to be about 8 years old. She’s wearing an ivory colored dress and does not let go of her brother’s hand. I stood there motionless, looking into those beautiful babies’ faces and then I think perhaps they will not speak. I didn’t move…a few seconds later, he speaks Have you seen our mother? I let out an audible sob, and stepping back, shaking my head, I heard myself softly reply, I’m so sorry, no, I haven’t seen her. Even as I type this, the tears once again roll down my cheeks. That hit so damn hard.
“Thousands of African Americans are unknown victims of racial terror lynching, whose deaths cannot be documented, whose names will never be known. They are all honored here”
Not That Long Ago
What I experienced during those four hours at the Legacy Museum would take countless more pages to summarize. And it is difficult to articulate here. Thinking back to my school years, it became painfully clear how much had been intentionally omitted. I emerged from that space with such a heavy heart. I felt broken and helpless. But it wasn’t over. There was the Peace Memorial.
At almost 4:30pm, they would soon close, so I rushed over. Turning off my phone, slowly descending into the space that houses the suspended steel monuments, I tried to read as many names as possible, knowing that each deserved my undivided attention. There were so many, many names: Bernice Raspberry (Texas), Joseph McNeely (North Carolina), Unknown, Unknown, Unknown, and on and on and on. It was absolutely overwhelming.
Reaching the eternal waterfall, I stood to reflect. At a point I made eye contact with one of the staffers, a young lady who pointed out the small plaques along the wall. She indicated there was information about their lives. Thanking her, I walked over to the last plaque on the wall across from the waterfall. It read:
Murdered for voting
I returned to where the young woman stood and said, he was killed for having voted in 1948. She shook her head. We both stood there in a momentary silence, before I offered “my mother was born in 1948 which means it happened in her lifetime and since she’s still alive, that means indirectly, it happened in MY lifetime” She nodded and said “yes, it wasn’t that long ago.”
Indeed, it wasn’t.
Watered down version
In preparing this blog post, I found details on Mr. Nixon. He was 28 years old and his life had been taken in front of his wife and children. For more on his story.
Before leaving, I met Dequarie, a university student working at the Memorial and we got to talking about the space. He walked me over to the replica monuments and showed me the one for Mecklenburg County. I shared with him that I had reached out to Equal Justice Initiative and that they put me in touch with a woman here in Charlotte who is involved with bringing the replica to our county.
We also had a conversation about Mrs. Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement. I had read that she was not the first person to refuse to give up her seat for a white person. Dequarie assured me that indeed there had been others before her and one in particular was a courageous 15 year old named Claudette Colvin, I remembered reading that the news was “quiet” about Ms. Colvin’s defiance of the bus segregation rule because she was pregnant at the time. What Dequarie shared was further insight and another angle: he noted that because Mrs. Rosa Parks was of a lighter complexion, she was deemed more “palatable” to whites and thus became the face for the bus boycott segment of civil rights movement.
Imagine that: even when Black activists, organizers and protestors were putting their lives on the line for the struggle, still they needed to proceed with caution, focusing on a watered down version of reality so as to appease whites!!
Connecting with my Brothers & Sisters
Coming to Alabama, I knew would be emotionally overwhelming. Spending my birthday weekend unlearning what I was taught as a child proved to be a gift in itself. And though I shed countless tears over those few days, I too had several occasions to smile.
Quincy, the Birmingham entrepreneur who encouraged me to come into the establishment after I’d taken a picture of the sign at the window of his Moore Styles Barbershop. The lights were out so naturally I thought it was closed. The sign read: I matter. You Matter. We Matter…..BLACK VOTERS MATTER. We chatted for a bit about how he wanted to visit NYC and before I left I dropped a placed a ten dollar bill on the counter. Just because.
An elderly woman at the Lebanese spot I stopped over for lunch when I first arrived in Alabama (I was so hungry!!). She was adorable and I could feel her warmth as we greeted each other. She complimented me on something I was wearing (can’t recall) and before I left I acknowledged her, wishing her an enjoyable rest of her afternoon. She smiled.
Brian, the restaurant staffer at the place I went to have breakfast. Though they didn’t serve fresh squeezed orange juice and did not offer caffe latte, I decided to stay. The scrambled eggs with spinach and toast was pretty tasty. But what got me smiling was when Brian, noticing my disappointment about the lack of fresh squeezed o.j., said “I would go out, find the best oranges and personally squeeze the juice for you.”
The joy of my beautiful sisters and brothers is something that no one could ever extinguish. I know this to be true.
Part of the Solution
Experiencing Birmingham and Montgomery, albeit for only a few days, brought me in painfully close proximity to this concept of race as social construct. It is a theory so deeply engrained over the centuries that as a society we have come to accept it as a necessary means for classification, identification and indeed, separation.
Why was it necessary to buy and sell people as if they were cattle? Who decided that persons of darker pigmentation would without question be deemed less than human? Where was it written that civil rights were dependent on the color of one’s skin? And to be clear, this is not endemic to the United States. Other countries- Britain, France, Brazil, Portugal to name but a few – have their own sordid past relative to the trade of human beings.
Much as we try to convince ourselves that we have made progress (indeed, in certain respects we have – at least here in the United States, my friends and I can sit anywhere we choose “on the bus”), the reality is that people are still being enslaved. The difference is simply a matter of terminology: today we use phrases like, human trafficking, mass incarceration, child exploitation. The end result remains the same. People being bought, sold and inevitably controlled so as to devalue their humanity.
All of this at its foundation is based on caste, whether it’s white supremacy or some other socio-economic hierarchy. And so, circling back to my original reflection on who writes history, I choose another angle. At what cost does a nation, a society, a people preserve its history? And admitting that we cannot erase the past, are we committed to truthfully re-constructing it so that future generations will know their stories? Are we brave enough to confront both our past and our present to avoid repeating painful history? How are we committed to being part of the solution? What are we doing to make this world a better place for our future generations? The discomfort in these questions is nothing compared to the sacrifices of those who endured unimaginable pain. We must not and cannot allow their memories to be dishonored.
The legacies of our ancestors demand nothing less of us.
