Atlanta

July 11, 2018.
Last night I was just too tired to pull my thoughts together!  Now I have to try and recap two very intense days.
Tues. began in Atlanta with a visit to the MLK National Historic Site, which encompasses three buildings.  The Center for Civil and Human Rights chronicles the American Civil Rights Movement as well as movements for human rights in places around the world.   There are many depictions of the brutal and dehumanizing ways in which Blacks were treated as they fought against segregation in the South and for voting rights and an end to recriminatory laws and practices across the country.  The amount of suffering the resistors were able to ensure is staggering.  One particularly distressing display features a reproduced section of a lunch counter such as those found in Greensboro and other places where there were sit-ins.  There are seats at the counter .  In front of each seat is hanging a set of headphones.  Once the visitor has sat don he or she is told to put on the headphones, lay their palms on the counter and close their eyes.  Almost immediately one hears voices making somewhat lewd comments, the the volume increases and racial slurs are being shouted from what seems to be all sides.  There are loud, sudden noises that resemble shots or small explosions at times I could almost feel hot breath on my neck!  I have no idea how the young people sold it forvsevealndays at a time.  I also cannot understand the mind-set of those perpetrating this ugliness.  That kind of hate seems so foreign to me.  Participating in this interactive display was unsettling, to say the least.
I was quite moved by seeing the mule wagon that carried MLKs body from the Church.  Just the idea that a man who worked so hard for peaceful soulutions would be killed makes me so sad. MLK and Coretta ‘s tombs are at the site.  Another moving experience.
After the Center, we moved to Ebenezer Baptist Church, at which both MLK’s grandfather and father were pastors an which he Co-pastored for a time.  It was interesting to be in that space, and to hear parts of MLK’s story with which I wasn’t familiar.
From the church we walked to MLK’s birth home .  The neighborhood of Sweet Auburn was once a quite wealthy Bkack neighborhood, but which also provided housing for lower income families.  The neighborhood is being revitalized in a way that seeks to preserve both the historicity of the area and the affordability.  Over a delicious lunch we heard from the executive director of the Historic District Development Corporation, which is the entity working with local government and others to achieve that goal.  She is another African American woman of great presence.  We have encountered quite a few of those along the way!
 We drove to Burmingham after a delicious, but chaotic-feeling dinner.  It was interesting that, after dinner, when live music started the group had some loud and rather frenetic dancing for a while.  We all needed to unwind a bit,  this is intense!
A late, late night.