by Taylor Anderson
For a vacation that touches your heart, stirs your imagination and leaves you with unforgettable memories of delicious food and friendly people, it’s hard to beat a trip through Alabama, moving on to Washington D.C. The fifty-four miles that separate Selma, Birmingham and Montgomery Alabama are filled with sites significant to the civil rights movement of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s that sought to gain voting rights for African Americans. Washington, D.C. is home to the newest memorial to the civil rights era, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.
Selma
Selma is the starting point for the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, established in 1996. The Trail commemorates the series of marches that took place in 1965 to highlight the campaign by African Americans to gain the right to vote. A highlight of the Trail, located in the heart of Selma is the Old Depot Museum, which houses historical artifacts dating from 1820 through the present day. Among the featured exhibits are artifacts related to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who led the civil rights marches and was one of the driving forces for civil rights in the United States.
Birmingham
In Birmingham, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2012. Established in 1992, the idea of establishing a civil rights museum originated in 1978 with then-mayor David Vann. After a lengthy history of research and dispute, the museum was established in the newly-designated civil rights district of Birmingham that includes the historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, the scene of a tragic bombing that killed four young girls in 1963. The facility serves as both a museum to display artifacts related to the civil rights movement as well as a learning facility to facilitate interaction and study around civil rights issues in Birmingham and worldwide.
Montgomery
After a series of attempts and clashes with law enforcement, including an especially vicious encounter dubbed “Bloody Sunday,” the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed a group of more than 25,000 protestors on the steps of the capital building in Montgomery. As a result of nationwide and worldwide attention generated by the marches, momentum and sentiment began to shift among Americans toward the plight of African Americans. The Civil Rights Memorial, designed by artist Maya Lin, who also designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., is located in downtown Montgomery, across the street from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The memorial is a round, smooth, black granite surface is carved with the names of individuals involved in the civil rights movement who were killed during the period between 1954 and 1968.
Washington, D.C.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, dedicated in 2011, is the newest memorial in a city filled with memorials. The site is actually more like an experience, highlighted by a larger than life 30 foot tall full-figure relief of the slain civil rights leader carved into a boulder named the Stone of Hope. The memorial is located on the scenic Tidal Basin in the heart of Washington D.C.’s National Mall, and stands within walking distance of the Lincoln Memorial, the site of King’s famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech.
Soul Food
Your travels throughout the Civil Rights region are bound to leave you hungry. Fortunately, Alabama is home to delicious soul food. A variety of dishes including barbequed ribs, chicken wings, fried tomatoes, greens, black eyed peas, okra and fresh seafood promise to please nearly every palate at establishments like Birmingham’s Green Acres Café and Niki’s West. Discriminating palates can also feast on fine dining at establishments like the Hot and Hot Fish Club and the Highlands Bar and Grill.
‘From Civil War to Civil Rights’ – Private Atlanta History Tour
For Further Reading:
• Alabama Soul Food: the True Flavor of the South
yearofalabamafood.com/farm-to-table/alabama-soul-food-the-true-flavor-of-the-south/
• Birmingham Civil Rights Institute: History
bcri.org/information/history_of_bcri/history.html
• Civil Rights Memorial
splcenter.org/civil-rights-memorial
• Coretta Scott King
encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1489
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1426
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
washington.org/visiting/experience-dc/mlk-memorial
• Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial: History of the Memorial
mlkmemorial.org/site/c.hkIUL9MVJxE/b.1190613/k.5EE9/History_of_the_Memorial.htm
• Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial: Site Location
mlkmemorial.org/site/c.hkIUL9MVJxE/b.7548975/k.9356/Site_Location.htm
• Martin Luther King’s Speech: “I Have a Dream” – the Full Text
abcnews.go.com/Politics/martin-luther-kings-speech-dream-full-text
• Rosa Parks
encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1111
• Rosa Parks Museum and Library
montgomery.troy.edu/rosaparks/museum/
• Selma to Montgomery March
encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1114
• Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail
nps.gov/semo/historyculture/index.htm
• Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1744
• Sweet Home Alabama: Dining
alabama.travel/things-to-do/dining/
• Walking Directions to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Dedication Ceremony
washington.org/images/mlk/walkingdirectionsbrochure.pdf
About the author:
Taylor Anderson is a part of a network of bloggers writing about travel and lifestyle on behalf of companies such as American Express. Air miles cards from American Express earn cardholders air miles on their spending.
Photographs:
Old Depot Museum, Selma by: Michael Barera / CC BY-SA
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham by: John Morse / CC BY-SA
Montgomery Civil Rights Memorial fountain by: JW1805 at English Wikipedia / Public domain
Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D.C. by: BakkeBaarend under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Turning off the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16) at Hazelton, under the majestic gaze of the Roche de Boule Mountain Range, we journeyed 29 kilometres over breathtaking single lane bridges spanning jaw-dropping gorges and chattering rivers, wending tree-lined ways (largely paved) to emerge at the Kispiox Festival grounds hard by the Kispiox River. On the way we disturbed a solitary black bear strolling leisurely along the road.
We arrived at the main River Stage in time to experience the large, colourfully attired, and local Twisted String Band, pumping out lively pieces which had audience members up and dancing while others watched from benches, personal seating or the natural amphitheatre overlooking the stage. The crowd, itself awash in colour, was composed of folk of all ages, hair lengths and attire. Nearby the Hall Stage, housed appropriately in a building with a hall, afforded entertainment free from the warming hand of the Sun.
The 2018 headliners included The Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra, Jacki Treehorn, Fish and Bird from Victoria, multi-faceted CR Avery, the “post-modern Vaudeville duo the Cromoli Brothers, Hannah Epperson, Joanna Chapman-Smith, Jenny Ritter, the Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer, childrens’ performer Angela Brown of the Ta Daa Lady Show, Liron Man playing the hang drum and Bocephus King.
Before moving to Houston to work full-time as a writer for the Houston Post, Porter collected some unique information and experiences in the Texas capital, which later appeared in his works Bexar Scrip No. 2692, Georgia’s Ruling and Gifts of the Magi. Inspired by his work in the Texas General Land Office, Bexar Scrip No. 2692 takes its name from a land grant file that Porter accessed during his daily duties, which had somehow gone astray. In O. Henry’s fictional story, the file goes missing because a rich railroad owner steals it in order to illegally obtain a poor homesteader’s land. Porter’s real-life boss, however, was adamant that such a crime could never have actually occurred, based on the office’s own rules and regulations. Whether you are interested in the historical angle of the document or the writer’s literary take on ordinary events, the original land grant can be viewed online at the Portal to Texas History at 
Returning to the O. Henry Museum, visitors can glimpse two more objects that provided inspiration for Porter’s writing. The home showcases two wicker chairs, which were allegedly the inspiration for O. Henry’s best known story, Gifts of the Magi. The author’s wife, Athol, apparently bought him the chairs as a present to decorate their rented home, using money he had saved to purchase her tickets to attend the World’s Fair. Inspired by his wife’s generous act, he wrote the ironic Christmas story in which two lovers buy each other gifts that neither can use, having sold off their most prized worldly possessions in order to pay for the other’s gift. Though the moral is that it’s better to give than to receive, O. Henry’s infamous twist ending provides a bit of dark humor amidst more typical seasonal tales of sharing and caring.
, based on her days as a sex columnist in the Sin City of the North.
As the vintage blue and white train climbs upstream following the banks of the Arkansas, the canyon walls grow ever closer and higher. Soon a fragile looking suspension bridge comes into view high overhead. It spans the width of the canyon from north to south. From the unobstructed view of an open railroad car, passengers can actually see light between the wooden boards that form the deck of the bridge.
Beneath the suspension bridge, the canyon is so narrow and the walls so steep that a place for railroad tracks seemed impossible. The river simply must occupy the entire canyon bottom. But in 1879 a “hanging bridge” was devised and built to allow the tracks to pass through the narrow space suspended above the rushing water. This bridge still serves today.
It wasn’t a Civil War skirmish; the only one of those fought around here was at Glorietta Pass just south of the New Mexico border. This was a war for territory between two railroads: Colorado’s “baby road,” the narrow gauge, Denver & Rio Grande, and the big, standard gauge, Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe. But, many of the men involved had been soldiers in that bloody war: quite notably the D&RG’s president, General William Jackson Palmer.
Santa Fe seized the entrance to the canyon west of Cañon City cutting off the D&RG for the second time. The outraged D&RG built forts upstream in the canyon to block the rival’s progress. Both sides recruited men well accustomed to the use of firearms – the Santa Fe brought in Bat Masterson with a crew of men from Dodge City. The resulting standoff was widely known as “The Royal Gorge War”.
Seymore went on to report Brother Gudmundsen’s birth in Stevanger, Norway on December 11, 1851; that he came to San Francisco in an English ship at the age of seventeen, and followed the sea – as mate of sailing vessels plying between San Francisco and Honolulu. He came to Bremerton in the year 1901 – a skilled workman in the Shipyard – petitioning for and taking the degrees of Freemasonry in the Bremerton Lodge. “We know that he enjoyed the privileges of Lodge membership and that Masonry had meaning for him. Honest his life, faithful his work, peaceful his death,” eulogized Seymore. “And now, my friends, as he lies here so still and silent, these cold lips are teaching us a lesson, if we could but realize it; and that is: to put our house in order, for no man knows when the reaper cometh. With our house in order, we can meet death, not as a grim tyrant, but as a kind friend who has come to give us rest.”
Bremerton Cemetery? I remember puzzling over just what had happened to that old pioneer’s cemetery – not enough to do any serious research to find where it had been – but still, more than just idle curiosity – and mystery. Then, this last summer – while aggravating over a traffic revision that forced a detour off of Eleventh Avenue to Naval Avenue – Eureka. There it was: Ivy Green Cemetery, over fifteen picturesque acres of peace, tranquility, history and memories.
I strolled among stone lambs, angels and books, crosses, broken columns and scrolls. I found the imposing stone obelisk of Thomas Wren Gorman, born April 12, 1841 at Tulicrimin Kerry County Ireland, died August 31, 1929; and the simple stone of Dr. Carrie E. Logan, PH.D. NYU, “born Mt. Shaster, Calif., 1873-1914 – Daughter of a Union Soldier and a Descendent of a soldier, War of 1812 and the Am. Revolution.” I found Bremerton’s own Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; and the plot dedicated to the Grand Army of the Republic and the final resting place of John H. Nibb, Civil War hero and one the first recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. A plot dedicated to U.S. War Veterans of the Spanish American War commemorates veterans of “Cuban, Porto Rico and the Philippine Island campaigns.”
The fifteen acres were surprisingly easy to cover – and I pretty much visited every grave site, without success. Well – without that particular success. I found the last resting places of many Masons who have gone before. I found sites commemorating Matildas, Cornelias and Getrudes – names once as common as Heather, Kimberly and Keisha may be today. I found Woodmen of the World, and I found Leda Nelson, born September 20, 1838, died September 20, 1902, “A little time on earth she spent, Til God for her his angels sent,” and little Baby Hope, October 5, 1904—March 30, 1905, “Jesus’ Little Lamb.”
But still no Brother Gudmundsen—until I ran into City of Bremerton Parks Department Specialist Chris Smith. After a brief consultation with the Register, Chris led me to RI 962, Lot 08, North Side and there, just below the Pederson Column and an inch from the stone border of another family plot, was a modest stone marker, maybe 18 inches by six inches – much eroded and defaced by time: 1851___Gudmund ____en ____19___. Brother Gudmundsen died just days after his 56th birthday, and was respectfully interred through the disinterested friendship of his brother Masons over one hundred years ago. The acacia tree was long gone, but the grave marker remains, weathered—but readable.
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