Montgomery, Alabama – Birthplace of the Modern Civil Rights Movement

June 7 

During the mid-20th century, Montgomery was a major center of events and protests in the Civil Rights Movement, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Selma to Montgomery marches.

We started at the Visitor’s Center to get a map for our walking tour of Montgomery. It was a cloudless and hot day (around 95* & humid). Phew!

 Union Station building houses the Visitor's Center

We walked to the Riverfront first.

Then, passed the Hank Williams monument and other sites on our way to the State Capitol building. We toured that and then headed to lunch. We had wanted to tour the church where Martin Luther King Jr. started preaching, but the timing just didn’t work out for the tours. 

 Hank Williams Statue

 The Alley - restaurants & shops

 Site of Rosa Parks Bus Boycott

Korean War Monument

 First Baptist Church Montgomery

Chief Justices

 Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church

 Capitol Building

 Dome

 Murals depict scenes from Alabama History

 Art Laurel Stove - state of the art back in the day.....

 George C Wallace

 Lurleen Burns Wallace

 art gallery

 outside of the Capitol building

We headed to Dreamland for lunch and since there were over 30 people waiting to get in we figured it was worth the wait. We could smell it from a block away. We both had the chopped pork sandwich and potato salad. YUM! I have never seen so many servers work so hard at any restaurant before. 

 Dreamland Bar-B-Que

 chopped smoked pork sandwich

chopped smoked pork sandwich topped with coleslaw (the southern way)

 We then toured the Rosa Parks Museum which was really well done. They have a bus simulator that acts like a time machine to go back and see the various events that formed the civil rights movement. It’s in the Children’s museum side, but they said it’s best to start there for the early sequence of events and then the regular museum picks up where that one left off. They simulated the actual arrest of Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat on the bus. 

 Rosa Parks Museum

 "Time Machine" bus

the stories were depicted on screens outside the bus walls

 art gallery at the museum

No photos were allowed in the museum section.

From there we walked back to the car and stopped to take photos of the First White House of the Confederacy and MLK’s home & museum. Our last stop was at Wright Brothers Park for a photo of their plane. 

 Jefferson Davis lived there

 First White House of the Confederacy

 Minister's House for Dexter Ave Memorial Baptist Church - MLK most famous one to live there

 Vernon Place - Dexter Youth Workshop

 Wright Brothers Park has a full-scale replica of the Wright Flyer which is right above the Alabama River

Very enjoyable day and there were a few other museums we could have visited, but time was short here and it was “enough” to get the history.

We stopped for ice cream at Bruster’s Ice Cream (afterall it’s National Chocolate Ice Cream Day! (like we need an excuse to eat ice cream....

https://photos.app.goo.gl/aEUEABl8VLwH3oal2

Tomorrow we are visiting Lagoon Park Trail & Cypress Nature Park.