My church played a huge impact in my life!
My birth name is Valerie A. Gilmore. In the year of 1963, I was a student at Center Street Elementary School. I was a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church located in the Titusville area of Birmingham where the pastor was Rev. Joseph Ellwanger (a white man). Being a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church played a huge impact in my life. Rev. Ellwanger and his family lived next door to the church, and they were a welcomed and active part of our community. Because of Rev. Ellwanger’s leadership and devotion to ending segregation, though I was a young child, I was able to participate in marches and discussions that opened my eyes to the unjust laws and practices imposed upon people of color.
To this day, I continue to avail myself to opportunities to bring about reconciliation and harmony among the races and all of God’s children. It is my hope that we all will come to the realization that we were created equal and that we should extend love and respect for all mankind.
Plantation Myths
“Another old BBQ restaurant. The ‘Old Plantation’ downtown had great BBQ. Opened in the 20s, it stereotyped blacks and did so until near its demise in 1972 when ownership changed. It stayed open several years after under new management. The “Yes suh, it was cooked in da pit” sign was removed. Too little too late I suppose” (From Hahn’s Historic Birmingham Facebook page, public group).
You can see the words as clearly as I can; as I did every time we drove past the Old Plantation on Birmingham’s First Avenue. The hickory smoke hit you full in the face if you kept your car windows rolled down, which we always demanded when we neared the joint. Such a sweet aroma, tempting, though to my memory, my family never ate there, or at least never went inside.
When I worked for my father at Standard Jewelry Company, roughly six blocks from the Old Plantation, sometimes the elders would order takeout, and that’s my only memory of eating this old style pit barbecue. You know they used a pit and real hickory wood because of the brick chimney you see to the right in the photo, and because I vouch for the smoke aroma and taste.
Though Alabama does wrong so often, people in the state know how to cook real pit, delicious barbecue.
But taste and cooking techniques aren’t the issue here. (more…)
Yankee with a Southern Accent
Were my parents correct in shielding us from the turmoil?
Our family attended Birmingham’s First Methodist Church in 1963. The Children’s building was under construction, and all the school age children were attending Sunday School in the Alabama Power building just a block away from the 16th Street Baptist church.
I remember hearing the bomb explode on September 15, 1963. All of our parents were a block away in the main sanctuary building and I remember them running into our Sunday School room in panic because they didn’t know where the bomb was.
My twin sister and I hoped our small efforts made a difference
My family moved to Birmingham 4/15/62 because our father was sent there by the Baptist Sunday School Board (now Lifeway Christian) in Nashville, TN to build a new Baptist Book Store, which he did. My identical twin sis, Leah, and I were 12 years old in April (turned 13 that May) and were enrolled in Mountain Brook Junior High. Our parents had always bought the best house they could afford just within the best school district, and Mountain Brook was it when we moved there. Two horrific dates from 1963 that will forever be etched in our memories were the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and the assassination of President Kennedy. Leah and I turned 14 years old in May, 1963.
We were at church at the all-white First Baptist Church close to the black church and our building shook and glass broke out of some windows when the blast went off. (more…)