Sunday Reflections: At The Park

Entrance to Kelly Ingram Park from 6th Avenue North/16th Street

I visit Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham several times a year. This small urban park was the central location of mass demonstrations in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. Reflecting on history there and beyond helps me to  broaden my understanding of courage and of humanity.

Even though I visited Birmingham every summer as a young child, most of what I heard about civil rights came from the television and not from the fact that history was being made only a few blocks from where I visited. I never heard any bombs. I didn't even know then there were bombings or dogs or water hoses or children going to jail.

So, I visit the park, the Civil Rights Institute, and 16th Street Baptist Church to remind me of a past that should never be repeated and, yes, maybe atonement.

If you look closely at the first marker, you can see the shadow of a man who was also visiting the park on this day with a younger man, possibly his son. I listened as the younger man began reading from the second marker, the tone of his voice rising in disbelief as he read the City Code Section 369 law. The marker reads:

Don't Tread on Me

May 1963

A female protester remains defiant as police drag her away from a demonstration in Birmingham's nearby retail district. Activists in Birmingham - led for seven years by Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth before the 1963 Birmingham Campaign - put their lives on the line to rebel against the City's unjust and unconstitutional segregation laws. One such law, City Code Section 369, said, "it shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant in the city at which White and Colored people are served in the same room...." Many Blacks march to the retail district to protest such laws with sit-ins and boycotts of downtown stores. There, some Whites spit on or verbally attack the protesters; but the non-violent protesters do not strike back.

The 16th Street Baptist Church became the organizational headquarters during these years. It was there the supreme sacrifice was made for the Movement: the bombing and murders of four girls on a Sunday morning.

On this particular day, I found a single wreath of fresh flowers had been placed at the site where the four girls were killed.

Seen outside the administrative offices of the church.

Dr. Martin Luther King

Kelly Ingram Park

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.
If they're shouting after you, keep going.
Don't ever stop. Keep going.
If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
~ Harriet Tubman