27 January 2019
What a great day! Robert and I left the house around 8 am and headed to breakfast. After Belgian waffles and coffee we then made a short detour to see Vulcan.
I’m old enough to remember when the statue had a lamp in his upraised arm instead of an arrow. Robert said the original statue had an arrow and it was later replaced by a lamp and has since been restored to its original arrow. The statue was made from iron ore mined from the site and was Alabama’s entry into the St. Louis World’s Fair in the 1904. After the fair, it was returned to Birmingham and permanently installed at its present site.
For many years when traveling through Birmingham for various reason, I always looked to see Vulcan. Robert said when the light was installed in the upraised hand, it was red if there was an accident on the road next to it. If not, it was green. It’s a great site to visit and one day I hope to make it up into the tower.
From Vulcan, Robert drove me around downtown Birmingham showing me some sights. We headed south on I-65 to Montgomery. Our primary purpose was to see the Hank Williams Museum.
The museum opened at 1 pm so we had some time to kill. We drove to the Oakwood Annex Cemetery to see Hank Williams’ grave. It is pristinely maintained and there were fresh red roses on his gravestone.
From there we visited a Civil War cemetery that started out as the original town cemetery of Montgomery. A large section of the cemetery is blocked off for Confederate soldiers who died not from their wounds but from diseases from the battlefield like cholera, dysentery, smallpox, etc. Many of the graves were marked unknown.
A lot of these deaths were early in the war and as late as 1864. Many were the result of lack of medicines in the South during the war because of the blockade of the southern states.
Finally it was time for the HW Museum to open. It was jam packed with memorabilia from Hank’s days on tour. Most of the collection on display is privately owned and much of it is owned by his son Hank Jr.
There were things from his days at the Louisiana Hayride, the Grand Ole Opery,, and even from the Hadacol Radio Hour. For those not in the know, Hadacol was this miracle cure out of Louisiana that was 14% alcohol that advertised constantly on the radio. I remember the commercials as a kid. The didactics of the museum indicated the inventor gave it the name because he “had to call it something.” It went the way of Carter’s Little Liver Pills when the FDA ruled your drug actually had to do what it promised.
The museum is deceptive. It looks very small but it larger than you think. Included in the exhibitions are the suit Williams was wearing on tour, his suitcase, and toilet kit that was in the trunk of the car when he died. Williams died in the back seat of his car (also in the exhibition) at the age of 39 of a heart attack while on his way to a concert in Canton, Ohio.
On our way to the HW Museum, you could go through the block through an alley. As you walked through the alley, you would pass restaurants and stores to get to the next block. As I was walking through, I saw an advertisement for The Legacy Museum. It later dawned on me this was the museum dedicated to the lynching of blacks in the United States during and after Reconstruction.
I knew I wanted to see this so I left Robert at the Hank Williams Museum to buy a ticket to the other. The Legacy Museum was closed but I could walk 15 minutes to the National Museum for Peace and Justice which is associated with The Legacy Museum. I finally realized it was the National Museum for Peace and Justice I wanted to see.
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I had confused the new Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Mississippi with this museum. If you have read anything about it, the NMFPAJ has metal rectangular columns handing from the ceiling.
Each column represents one county of one state. The names of black men and women who were lynched were cut out of the metal. Each column is illuminated at night so if you visit at night, the names are outlined in light on the column.
Over 4,000 lynchings occurred in the United States after Reconstruction and up until the 1950’s. I was trying to find my home county (Scott) in Mississippi. I had looked this up on a web site and was told there was only 1 lynching in the county. It turns out there were 13 lynchings in Scott County from 1896 until 1902.
Two women were walking around the same area as I and they were looking for Madison County Alabama. We all agreed to help each other look. I found mine but they were still looking when I left.
As you leave the hanging columns, you walk out into the sculpture garden and the same names and counties are cut out of metal to look like coffins. The number of lynchings in Mississippi was so large there was a special area of the sculpture garden set aside for them.
I get emotional when I see images and video of the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington. I’ve never visited and would love to see it. I can’t image it could be any more powerful than this monument to those who lost their lives to lynchings in the United States. This is a must see if you ever get to Montgomery. It’s worth a special trip.
From there, Robert and I headed to Confederate Memorial Park which has a wonderful small museum on the Civil War and the Confederate Veterans Home that was once on the sight. As many as 91 Confederate Veterans and their wives (called inmates) were housed on the premises with healthcare. The last Confederate veteran died 1934. After the last widows passed away in 1939, the facility was closed. None of the buildings or cottages remain.
There are two cemeteries in the park that hold the graves of the veterans who died while in the care of the Home.
We returned in time to gather Lynn and head to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays.
Tomorrow I head to Tishomingo State Park near Dennis, Mississippi for one night of camping. This is where I did my masters thesis – a floristic survey of the vascular plants of the park. I want to hike some of the trails that traveled for over two years of plant collecting. Predicted temperatures are in the 20’s. It should be cold but I have two sleeping bags which I intend to slip one inside the other. There’s even a possibility of snow!
When I was eight or ten, we were visiting my aunt (your great aunt) Ernestine in Brighton/Birmingham and Bivin and his brother Horace took me inside the Vulcan statue. I was absolutely thrilled with the experience. I don’t think Jo and Jean were there. Now it looks so small, but to me as a small child, it was thrilling. When Louis was small we visited the grounds, but didn’t or couldn’t go inside. Across the interstate was a science museum that had an exhibit that included dinosaur remains discovered there if I remember correctly. If you do go back to the Vulcan, check out the science museum nearby.
I only knew Aunt Ernestine and Uncle Bevin when they lived in Bessemer. I still want to go up in it.
I hope the good people of Birmingham have completed the statue for James H Wilson, as his exploits there are legend. So many fires to combust!
The Wilson exploits are well remembered by at least one Birmingham resident.