Birmingham

We stopped in Birmingham to see a few things.  One place was the 16th Street Baptist Church.  In the early 1960's 4 young girls were killed when the KKK bombed the church.  This proved to be a keystone event in the civil rights movement.

There is now a park dedicated to the girls and several others killed.

There are street signs marking the path of some of the marches.  We walked one and read each sign.  We learned a lot about how the marches were organized, how the city fought the black community and the violence that was put on the black community.  I credit the city for eventually acknowledging these acts and marking the march routes as historical.  We both had forgotten how viciously the city leaders attacked the marches including the children.

We also visited the Southern Negro League Baseball Museum.  I have been fascinated by the Negro league for a long time.  Diana has become interested as she is a baseball fan, too.  There were a lot of great baseball players in the Negro League.  I would have loved to have seen some of these guys play.