Why was Marti so alone?

Why was Marti so alone?  Why did I and approximately 1,000 other students fail to join the righteous social revolution that swept Birmingham and America in May of 1963?  Speaking for myself, the reason was cowardice.  I was among scores, indeed, hundreds of students who thought George Wallace was a buffoon and the violent attacks on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his demonstrators were both unchristian and unconstitutional.  More than any decision of my college years, I regret my obedient decision to keep my mouth shut and to stay on campus, as ordered.  But I know that I cannot blame my failure on the college administrators who threatened us with expulsion.  Most students realized instantly that the college was copping out on its classroom ideals, but it was entirely our own fault that we did not defy our deans in the cause of justice.

Why was I so fearful?   (more…)

“A Love That Forgives”

In June 1962, my family moved to Birmingham, Alabama. My father was called to pastor the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. As a 12-year-old, I felt excited from moving from my birthplace, Richmond, Virginia. to a new city and the opportunity to meet new friends and experience life in a new city. Little did I know that the move to Birmingham would literally change our lives forever.

My father got involved immediately upon our move with the Alabama Christian Human Rights Movement and was asked by their leadership if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., could use the church as a place for civil rights meetings, which I did not realize until many years later. (more…)

I became a stereotype

In 1963, I was a student and would-be journalist at Howard College (now Samford University), one of Birmingham’s whites-only institutions intent on ignoring and resisting the civil rights revolution outside their gates.  All that effort to shield us, and restrict us, and yet my memories of college years nonetheless are memories of Birmingham and civil rights.

I arrived at Howard with only a rudimentary sense of racial fairness.  (more…)

Growing up on Dynamite Hill

I grew up in the College Hills neighborhood (commonly known as “Dynamite Hill” for the rash of bombings in the 1950s and 60s). Attorney Arthur Shores lived three blocks from me on Center Street. Our home would shake every time a bomb exploded in the neighborhood. One night a window broke in our home. My friends and I would walk through the neighborhood the next day to see whose home was hit. My parents never discussed the bombings. I remember one Sunday a bomb was found outside the church on Center Street (Queen of the Universe). Two of my childhood friends were in Sixteenth Street Baptist Church when it was bombed (Dale & Ken). I remember my father, brother and I driving by the church a couple of weeks later and seeing the destruction, still vivid to me.

Easter Sunday 1963

Recollections of an 11 year old

Daddy asked the session of the church to support his stance that the doors remain open to anyone who wanted to worship within.

On Easter Sunday 1963 my best friend, and “blood sister,” Kathy, and I, with a concealed collection of snacks we had bought on our trip to the drugstore between Sunday school and church, headed up to the balcony as usual. Kathy and I did everything together, and we sat wherever we pleased in church since we were almost twelve. (more…)