The Making of a Child Crusader
When I look back over the years of my life, I can recount so many experiences that primed me to become one of the children crusaders for the Civil Rights Movement. I am sure that my experiences were the same as thousands of other African American children, growing up in Birmingham, Alabama during the 1950s and 60s.
As I recollect and assemble my memories, I see them as a montage of snippets from various movies. These real life snippets were the events that helped make my contemporaries, and me, willing to risk personal injury, and jail, to bring about changes for a better life for our people.
If I were to make a movie draft of my life, it would include a sound track. (more…)
Children, don’t answer the phone!!
CHILDREN, DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE!! In 1963, there weren’t yet any smartphones, cellphones, cordless, or touchtone phones, no answering machines or voicemail. At our home on Shades Crest Road in Vestavia, we did have at least 4 phones…rotary, desktop, wall, and a princess phone throughout the sprawling bi-level. We had all been taught how to politely answer & take a message. So my 2 brothers & I found it strange in the autumn of 1963 that our parents suddenly instructed us NOT to answer the phone. The tone of their voices when they gave this directive conveyed urgency; we obeyed, of course. Just let the phone ring, they said, or one of us will answer it!
It wasn’t until years later that we would come to understand why we could not pick up the phone during that turbulent time. September was always my favorite month, and remains so to this day (more…)
Their venom surprised me
For the most part, I was oblivious to the summer of violence that ensued. But one thing I will never forget about those days is one of my rare interactions with white people. I was just about to cross a well-traveled street on my way to the store when a pickup truck whizzed by with two or three white kids in the back who yelled something about “nigger” at me.
Their venom surprised me because it was so unexpected. I remember wondering how they could hate me when they didn’t even know me. Did whoever was driving the truck really intend to hit me? But just how far hatred can take a person toward depravity became more apparent within a matter of days when Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed on Sept. 15, 1963, killing four little girls. (more…)
Nobody dared her to do it
Nobody pressured her. Nobody dared her to do it. Her decision was hers to make.
On April 24, 1963, in a watershed moment in her life, Birmingham-Southern sophomore Martha “Marti” Turnipseed chose to join seven black students who were sitting in for justice at a segregated Woolworth’s food counter in downtown Birmingham.
Little did she know that Birmingham Police Commissioner Bull Conner had spying detectives everywhere. (more…)
Gaston Motel
On Thursday night Dad asked if I wanted to drive into the city with him. He had to drop off something. The VW chugged to the crest of Red Mountain, with the lights of Birmingham spread across the valley below. Down into the city and into the black neighborhood, where I had seldom ventured. We parked in front of the Gaston Motel, where Dr. King and Reverend Shuttlesworth used a second floor office room as campaign headquarters. It was already past my usual ten o’clock bedtime, but crowds of people – mostly black, but a few whites – jammed the small lobby. (more…)