All the Things are Closed on Sundays

After an evening of doing pretty much nothing except recuperating, Katie and I were feeling more human and were ready to hit the ground running...or, actually, driving. heh.
Since Katie and I are just as obsessed with getting postcards from each state we visit as we are about taking pictures of the state signs, we were on a mission to find cards from Mississippi.  After a million stops, we ended up at this super old store/restaurant/antiques stop just before the Alabama border.  There we found old postcards from all over, including Mississippi.  KR and I had a lot of fun rifling through all the cards and chatting with the owners.  So cool.  Shortly thereafter, we officially entered Alabama:

As we drove through the state, we came upon the small town of Demopolis, which is Greek for "City of the People."  Founded in 1817 by French aristocrats (not farmers) who thought they'd be able to form a colony of grape and olive growers (in the Alabama climate! ha!).  Needless to say, they failed but ultimately survived thanks to the Choctaw Indians who gave them food and taught them to grow viable crops.  The French eventually peaced out, and the town was taken over by slave-owning American cotton planters, and we went and took a tour of Gainswood, pictured below.  Believe it or not, this "classic Greek Revival manor" was originally a little two-bedroom cabin, but money and slave labor turned it into the beauty you see here.  It comes with a good tour and lots of information, and was really, a very beautiful house.

On our next stop through Alabama, we hit up Selma, which played a seminal role in the civil rights movement of the 1960's.  Katie and I enjoyed driving around town as we loved on the cute small-town buildings/houses, and also marveled at (and were shocked by) it's place in history.  The bridge, below, for instance (called the Edmund Pettus Bridge) was the site of Bloody Sunday.  In response to harassment and violence as blacks registered to vote, a group of about 400 African Americans decided to put on a peaceful march from Selma to the capital of Montgomery.  When they got to the bridge, they were met by police officers who beat them and fired tear gas at them, and at least one peaceful protester ended up shot and died eight days later.  Afterward, national security forces were brought in, and they staged another peaceful walk from Selma to Montgomery.  The walk was a success, lasted five days, and by the time the walkers got to Montgomery, their numbers had swelled to around 20,000.

KR and I also wanted to see the National Voting Rights Museum, but our timing was off, and we missed the museum by like half an hour.  We were totally bummed, and it turned out that wouldn't be the first disappointment of the day.

We did get to see the local First Baptist Church in town, and it was one that MLK had spoken at on numerous occasions.  That was cool.

And we got to see a graveyard, which was beautiful!!  I love graveyards for some reason, and this one was a treat to view!  So pretty!

After Selma, we pretty much just went straight on through to Montgomery.  We were SOOO excited to see the Civil Rights Memorial, but alas, we were totally out of luck there too!  It had also just closed like half an hour before we got to town and it isn't open on Sundays! (We were in Montgomery on a Saturday!)  AAAAARG!!!  We were SOOO disappointed!  Katie and I would come to find that not a lot is open in Alabama on Sundays...go figure!

We DID get to see the Dexter Avenue Church where MLK was the main pastor, and that was really really cool!  Again, we didn't get to go inside, but we did get to check it out!  We also wanted to see the Parish house where he and his wife lived, and we drove all around looking for it, but to no avail.  It was hidden!

Literally a block away from the above church is the Alabama State Capital Building, and a lot of the historically significant confederate/civil war places of interest.  It was certainly not lost on Katie and I the irony that, within a block of each other, we were looking at both the fight to keep slavery alive (Civil War) and the fight to end slavery (Civil Rights).  Incredible.  And, as I think I mentioned in a previous post, both are also so ever-present.  It's hard to describe, but it's like the history is just sitting there, waiting for people to notice it.  But anyway, below is a picture of the White House of the Confederacy.  Remember when we learned about Jefferson Davis a few posts ago?  This was his presidential house.  But it wasn't always in this location (right across from the Capital Building).  Apparently they moved it from its original location a few days before to make it closer to all the other historical/governmental buildings?

While we were sad that so many of the museums we wanted to see on our trip across Alabama were closed, we still had a great time noodling around the state/town of Montgomery.  Also, we got some "necessities" done.  Aka, we went to a local laundromat to warsh our clothes, so we'd have clean stuff to wear.  Yay!  Then we rewarded ourselves with a yummy dinner at a Wintzell's Oyster House, where Katie tried Oysters for the first time!  YUM!!!

-ENCM