Hattie Mukombe

"We began the morning with PowerPoint presentations concerning group topics about Alabama. Afterwards, we visited the 16th Street Baptist Church; one of the mornings' discussed topics. It was awesome seeing our research at firsthand. Here we found the tour guides still emotionally disturbed about the death of the four innocent African American girls.

From the church, we decided to grab some lunch at a café, and I can honestly say that this was by far the best restaurant southern food I had ever had… the meatloaf was outstanding. With stomachs full, and hearts content, we visited an outside civil rights exhibit. The statues of the dogs were terrifying; I can’t believe the police actually held the clothing of the African American victims preventing them from escaping their attack.

From here, we met up with four Birmingham ladies who kindly shared their life history. I cannot imagine having lived during their youth. I cannot imagine living in fear and terror as I imagine they did. How they even had the courage to rise up every morning is absolutely amazing. After the first bomb exploded in my town, I would have probably taken the first opportunity to relocate. But these individuals remained not only in the city, but also in the same house where bombs placed by segregationists had exploded. In the midst of all that occurred, they remained calm and sought not revenge. Though I cannot properly state what I “believe” I would do in such a situation, I can only imagine that my reactions would not have been as cool, calm, and collected. I do not understand the amount of self-discipline these individuals possessed. I mean, imagine walking through home troubled with fear. The home is the one place of refuge where people go to feel safe. However, for these individuals, a happy home could quite easily be a wrecked destroyed home at any moment: and in the same instance, their very lives and family could cease to exist.

Something else that I found interesting was the response time of the policemen. Even today, for whatever reasons, it takes the police a little while to arrive to a needed scene. I can not help but believe that back then, police were much less concerned with arriving anywhere to assist African Americans. However, for the bomb cases, the policemen were at the crime scene almost in the same instant that the bomb exploded. I remember one speaker telling the class how the police was at the front door by the time the victims made their way to the front entrance. How was it that they got there so quickly? It almost leads me to believe that the police were in on the bombing and their timely arrival was only to see whether the victims were dead, to confirm the damage done.

We were able to see graphic images of the destroyed church after the bomb detonated as well as pictures of multiple protests that followed. We saw pictures of the infamous “Bull” Connor and how he used fire hoses and attack dogs to subdue the protestors. We left the church and headed for a park across the street commemorating people involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, as well as the statue of the man and women that is shown on the front of our course booklet. The two are standing side by side and written beneath them on the statue is the phrase “We ain’t afraid of your jail”. The most compelling thing about the statue is another piece, a rectangular structure with bars in the middle, which you can look through to give the appearance of seeing the couple in jail. Also there were two monuments along a pathway dubbed the “Freedom Walk”, one showing two fire hoses pointed at a black man, and another with barking dogs protruding from the structure that tourists can pass through. This was just another depiction of the violence that many faced during the Civil Rights movement and I began pondering how Dr. King and many others could so steadfastly hold their position of nonviolent direct protest. I thought back to the movie we watched “Boycott”, the Ebenezer Baptist Church and the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”.

While I truly believe that violent protests to the racial oppression would have served to only perpetuate more violence, it is difficult to fathom constantly turning the other cheek instead of organizing and physically fighting against the oppressors. I really had to think about the character of those involved in the protests and how it must have torn at them to see their houses and churches bombed, with little assistance from the police to curb violence against them, and yet the continued to express themselves nonviolently.

After we left the park, we met with a woman named Mrs. Peggy Heidi who rode with us on the bus to show us a little tour of the section of town that she grew up in which is hauntingly dubbed “Dynamite Hill” on account that so many of the homes were bombed as blacks moved into the neighborhoods and protests against segregation and inequality increased. Although it was difficult for me to see because of my location on the bus, I still gained a lot especially when we talked later with the judges.

While most of the day was visually compelling and graphic, I was most moved when we reached the courthouse. I was familiar with a lot of the images that we saw as well as the violent history of Birmingham, but our time in the courthouse really touched me today. We met with Judge Helen Lee Shores, her sister Barbara Shores, and Mrs. Heidi with her friend Aloha Higgins. The women first spoke with us about the difficulties growing up in Birmingham, in particular “Dynamite Hill”. All of them talked about when they were first aware of racism and how they always staunchly defied it at every opportunity. However, more intriguing was the fact that each of them spoke about how they were punished later on by their parents for publicly disobeying Jim Crow laws. Although it seems a bit strange that they were punished for fighting against a system that their parents knew was wrong, at the same time their parents had to be concerned for the safety and well-being of their children. They were putting themselves and danger and there was also a fear that those public displays could possibly cause their parents to lose their jobs. Without jobs, they would no longer be able to support the family, so that they had to reprimand their children for fighting a blatantly oppressive system.

Finally after they each gave us an idea of their history and experiences growing up, we were able to hold a very open and engaging conversation with them. Judge Shores was asked about the difficulties of constantly seeing the same justice system that she works for constantly and disproportionately sends blacks, particularly black men, to prison. She also made mention of how everything is further complicated when you include that fact that even in 2003 our criminal justice system, like or society, is divided between the haves and have-nots. Those who can afford it often hire great defense teams to represent them in the court of law and often, even in the face of strong evidence that points to their guilt, they are acquitted. The problem obviously is that most blacks that are on trial cannot afford great legal defense teams, often leaving them with underpaid, lesser qualified and unenthusiastic public defenders who instead of trying to get an acquittal, seek to strike a deal for a lesser sentence. This only further perpetuates the system of equality because by placing a disproportionate number of blacks in jail, you can systematically erase a large number of voters. This in turn makes it difficult for change if a large proportion of the oppressed are unable to vote.

Also we spoke with them and it was expressed that our generation appears to lack a “sense of urgency” and that since the struggles of those before us during the Civil Rights movement, we have become relaxed and somewhat complacent about our place in society. We would love to believe that the playing field is now equal and we avoid “dwelling on the past” but our unfamiliarity with the past is and will continue to be the reason why the movement towards the advancement of equality will come to a stop. As we continued the discussion, I grew fearful that in 15 to 20 years, our children would not be aware of the history and struggle that many of our predecessors went through. Even worse, it seems that years from now we will have to explain to our children that the reason why a lot of inequality continues to persist is because we have failed.

Judge Shores, her sister, and Mrs. Higgins constantly reiterated that one of the main reasons we have failed is that we have forgotten or are ignoring our past. We often try to avoid “dwelling” on the past, but in doing so we have forgotten how hard our predecessors fought to achieve and get ahead and we forget that we must continue to work just as hard. Mrs. Higgins kept saying that she always grew up believing that blacks had to be better than everyone else to get ahead, a sentiment that my mother constantly shares with me. She always told me that I had to work two and three times as hard as my white peers to get ahead. However I don’t see that same sentiment in younger blacks and that worries me.

The most frustrating thing about the situation is that I don’t want to make it seem that black people must be untrusting and I feel extremely cynical and would love to believe that we shouldn’t have to worry so much about equality in 2003, but the truth remains that we have not finished and we are still not equal. As nice as it would be to say that we are now given the same opportunities in the equal situations, I still realize that I am not always viewed equally and that everything that I do is highly scrutinized and always reflects back to my race as a whole. That’s a hard thing to adjust and often it seems as though I place a lot of pressure on myself, and yet I still see so much inequality that I cannot simply ignore it. "

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