Birmingham

Hi!  I am back!  I finally feel well enough to write and I have enough mobility in my shoulder that I can type with both hands. Who would have thought breaking one's shoulder could be so painful?  I am still pretty limited in what I can do. It is frustrating as I hate not having the freedom to come and go as I please or do a simple task like take a bath or dress. The good news is recovery is just a few weeks away. Can you believe Christmas is just two weeks away? Thankfully, my Christmas shopping is done and the Christmas cards go out in the mail tomorrow. Tomorrow, I am heading to a Christmas ornament exchange party.  I am looking forward to getting out of the house. I am starting to get cabin fever. Oh, I just remembered that the girls Christmas performance at German School is this weekend which means we need to practice their songs.

Ok, so this post has been two weeks in the making.  Birmingham just two hours west of Atlanta is an easy destination for a day trip or a weekend getaway. The city is seeing new growth and with that delicious restaurants are popping up on every corner. Try Hattie B's for their fried chicken!  Yummy!  Then head over to the Big Spoon Creamery for dessert. Wanting to teach the kids about Martin Luther King Jr. we visited spots around town that were important to the Civil Rights movement.  Birmingham is where Martin Luther wrote his famous letter while he was imprisoned in the local jail.  He wrote, " But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; […] when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; […] when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair."

A word of warning, you won't walk away from Birmingham untouched by the sacrifice that the brave souls made as they fought for justice.  May we never return to a time when people are discriminated against based on their race or we can add to that differences, religion, and so forth. As I stated earlier, I broke my shoulder, so sadly we didn't get to see everything we had intended to see, but that just means we will have to go back.  Have a great weekend!