Alabama Heritage
April 20, 2008 | Uncategorized
Bill, the latest edition of Alabama Heritage came. I was happy to see that there was an article about Birmingham, but was disappointed that it was only about the Civil Rights movement. “The Voice of Black Birmingham” is the title. It has several prints of different papers with titles like “Supreme Court Voids Sit-In Convictions”. “Kennedy Says U. S. Will Enforce Desegragation At Alabama Univ. if Necessary to Counter Wallace.” There’s a wonderful photo of Birmingham’s Northside, which was a proud community where black-owned Insurance Companies, Banks, Grocery Stores, Theaters, Beauty Parlors, Barber Shops, Restarants, and Night Clubs Flourished. It must have been around the early 1920’s from the look of the cars. And what were blacks doing with so many cars? And those on the streets were very nicely dressed in their overcoats (it must have been cold weather) and of course hats, which look ’20’s. I’m not a good judge. Maybe the cars are 1930’s. This makes me think of Pop so much. (mentioning the hats-not the Civil Rights movement)
Of course, we were living in Birmingham….in Elyton Village….when “Bull” Connor(?) turned the hose on the blacks. And the dogs. I mean, he turned the dogs on the blacks…not the hose on the dogs.
Alabama Heritage Magazine, Spring 2008 Issue,
showing Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest on the cover.
4 Responses to “Alabama Heritage”
I rather liked the article. That was back in the days when the civil rights movement actually meant something, unlike the utter JOKE it has become with the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton fronting it.
Pretty much every city in America, large or small, had a FLOURISHING black business district in the 1920s, on the model of Harlem and Chicago’s South Side. That was true of Tulsa, for instance, as well as Houston (”the Wards”) and Birmingham’s northside.
Things were “separate but equal” to a great degree, and in B’ham you had great businessmen like Booker T. Washington, etc., leading the way. It was really a “parallel universe,” much the same sort of standard of living as in the white community, but of course completely separate.
It all came to an end with the Depression. That hit everyone, of course, but it destroyed the “black renaissance” utterly, since they were just too small and insular to weather the storm.
Well, actually, the Depression was the BEGINNING of the end for black America. FDR and LBJ finished ‘em off. The “New Deal” and then the “War on Poverty” saddled black Americans with shattered families and a culture of dependency from which they haven’t recovered.
So long as Democrats have power, it will continue, btw. You have a few renegades who happen to be conservatives such as Walter Williams, Clarence Thomas, fellow Birminghamian Condie Rice, etc., but they are regularly vilified by the Democrats’ media arm (also known as ABC, NBC, CBS, TBS, CNN, MS-NBC, and all the newspapers).
Look at Barack Obama. He’s the POSTER CHILD for who the Democrat think is a “real Black leader”: Someone who’s religious “adviser” teaches that white people are “from Satan” and pals around with a guy who bombed the U.S. Capitol.
Sorry, rant “off.”
By bill on Apr 20, 2008
I guess I still lump all blacks in with Jesse Jackson and the likes. There are some that have my total admiration. I think his name was John Lewis. The one that was beaten to a pulp time and time again, and always came back swinging.
Barack Obama. How scary can it get for America, and especially for blacks, and they’re going to vote for him by the millions. So sad. The poor ones, and that’s still most of ‘em, who are dependent on Government, just aren’t educated enough to know better. After all, what are they taught in the Government schools, which, sadly, our white kids have to attend also, and they get all of that stuff crammed down their throats.
You were not ranting, Bill. I just wanted to see something else on Birmingham. Maybe other editions will feature stories that will be of more interest to me. I’m so tired of “Black History Month” and Black this and that. It’s everywhere you turn, as if there are no other people living in the United States of America, and especially caucasions. Whatever happened to that group?
My people were of Scottish ancestry, and somehow, they made it all the way to Alabama. (I don’t know if they had a banjo on their knee) The men were probably puffing on bagpipes and wearing funny little skirts. Somewhere in north Alabama there is a reunion every year that Dennis Jacobs used to attend (for Scottish descendents).
How about writing about that? If it’s individuals who send in these articles, it would be something to think about.
By mother on Apr 21, 2008
FWIW, just about every issue of that magazine that I’ve seen has an article on Birmingham. The issue before, it was the paintings and etchings of Richard Coe, who was funded by the WPA back during the depression, and did all sorts of photo-realistic sketches of Birmingham life.
Also FWIW, I don’t get tired of “black history,” because it’s American history after all. I dismiss all the silly shenanigans of the modern “civil rights” bunch, but if you get beyond that it’s fascinating.
Nancy and I purchased the DVD set of the Ken Burns documentary “Jazz” a couple of months ago, and have been watching it as time permits (it’s a total of 20 hours). Of course, MOST of it is about black American musicians who created and helped perfect that wonderful AMERICAN art form. But there’s little sentimentality attached to it, which makes it that much more interesting.
Duke Ellington, probably one of the greatest composers to ever live, travelled with his band all over the country during the depression, since the lack of money meant that the crowds were just too thin in New York to sustain his band. He and his bandmates were the height of elegance and sophistication, but everywhere they went, especially in the South, they had a hard time finding a decent hotel to stay in since nearly all the upper-scale Negro-only hotels had closed down, and only a handful of whites-only hotels remained.
So instead of whining and crying about it, their manager, a small Jewish man named Irving Mills, hired two Pullman cars and the band just traveled and slept and ate in their cars while on the road.
Right at the beginning of his stardom, Sammy Davis Jr. was unable to stay in the hotels in which he entertained on the Las Vegas strip. That finally changed when his white buddies (”the brat packers” like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra) began to boycott the hotels.
And so it goes.
That’s history, Mom, and you can’t ignore it just because the Jesse Jacksons and other such doofuses have made a mockery of the term “civil rights.”
By bill on Apr 21, 2008