We’re finally in Nashville, TN; cradle of country and bad boy of the South. So far so good– we have two days off before picking up shooting again. Yesterday was a long drive from Birmingham by way of Space Camp (!!), which involved an torrential downpour… Ahh, summer in the South.
Our journey from New Orleans to Nashville took along part of the “civil rights trail,” through Montgomery and Birmingham, AL. Two cities wracked by some of the worst mass injustices and cruelties perpetrated in this country, yet both also the context for some of the most powerful and catalytic events in the American civil rights movement. Montgomery, home to courageous Rosa Parks, and Birmingham, where the unparalleled Martin Luther King, Jr. once lived and preached.
The first stop we made in Montgomery was the corner in front of the Empire Theater where Rosa Parks was arrested on the bus way back in 1955. We met with a few people who are curators of the Rosa Parks museum and also personally connected with Mrs. Parks. I was in awe, as one woman told me about growing up around Mrs. Parks, how her aunt was one of her closest friends, how she lived “just up the street over there.” Soon Katie (another PA) and a younger guy affiliated with the museum joined in too, and our conversation went on to the entire civil rights movement and the current state of race relations in the South. The two locals said that sadly, an amount of very blatant racism still goes on– not “just” prejudice or bias, but true old-fashioned racism. I know that for myself, growing up in Los Angeles, I tend to be desensitized to racial differences. Segregation, whether overt or disguised, seems like a thing of the past to me.
In the past year, this country has been overwhelmed with a flood of calls for “change.” Our own Bash has bravely embarked on his own journey of change, as we have been honored to have him share in his latest post. But, the most difficult part of making this leap– whether it be fighting the lesser aspects of our characters, ending human rights abuses, or simply ushering in a new administration– is making a clean break with the past. We all, individually and collectively, carry our history with us eternally. It is always there, always unchanging, always final, and always reaching out to affect our future. It is a dance we all engage in, a partner we cannot escape but can only lead in a new direction.
As I spoke with these two Montgomery natives, who were born and live steeped in Alabama’s civil rights struggle, I was amazed by their open forgiveness and firm belief in constantly moving forward, despite the many wrongs executed on them and their families. “We all bleed the same red blood, and we’re all ‘colored.’ ” the boy said. “Most people believe what they’re told when they’re growing up. But I think it’s like eating chicken– you have to eat the meat, and spit out the bones.”
-Lyzz
