First, a digression. Remember a day or so ago when I said I knew nothing about Pulaski TN. I forgot to mention one thing. Pulaski is the home of the Ku Klux Klan. The place where the Klan began. It’s also the hometown of post John Crowe Ransom who did not write any poem where Klan was used to rhyme with began.

Ok, today.

My quick impression of Montgomery. It’s the Capitol of Alabama (and has all the requisite government buildings attractively laid out). But that’s about it for the downtown portion of the city. When you see photos of 1955 Montgomery during the bus boycott, you see a vibrant commercial area. That area just doesn’t exist anymore. There is a placque on the spot where Rosa Parks boarded the bus. But it’s at a spot where there is no trace of 1955.

The Dexter Road Baptist Church is still there with appropriate homage to Martin Luther King, Jr., but where are the houses in what must have been a vibrant surrounding neighborhood? They must have existed.

Where are the historic black areas? Where do the prominent residents of the city live? No idea. Where to find a place to park your car downtown? That’s the easy one. Parking lots galore.

We came here to see the new Legacy Museum and it  is terrific and everyone should go and see it. It is very large and tells of the African American experience very broadly. But it is not a museum of artifacts. It’s a museum of history told with words and videos and photos.

I read that the average visitor spends three to five hours there. That seemed impossible. But we arrived a little after 9 a.m., and left about one p.m. That’s four hours. And we could have seen more.

It starts with transport from Africa, tells of slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, segregation, the civil rights movement. And it’s mainly in printed words on walls. If you come, be prepared to do a lot of reading. Yes, there are many videos (vintage films and animations), and some really well done, but the story is in the descriptions and the articles, and the quotations.

On the other hand, there are fascinating statistics and story lines you may have forgotten or never learned. And this is important. And the stories are told in a very engaging manner.

Do I have any criticisms? Sure, as always. In a sense, it’s too much. And it doesn’t seem to have been created with children (of any age) in mind. We saw some school groups – the kids don’t have the necessary patience. And it tells one side (yes, the better side) of a complicated story at times, so while everything is factual, you don’t always see all of the facts. And it’s about Blacks as victims and Blacks who fought against victimhood – it doesn’t have any focus on Whites that helped Blacks move forward, for example..

This museum will broaden your appreciation of the Black experience. And, living today in America, broadening your experience is crucial.

Another digression. Two weeks ago we saw The Lehman Trilogy at the Shakespeare Theatre. The Lehman Bros. got their start as cotton brokers in Montgomery. The Legacy Museum is on the site of a Lehman Bros. wearhouse.

The museum was opened in 2018 by the Equal Justice Initiative. Just two weeks ago, EJI opened the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park on the banks of the Alabama River, a 17 acre site where a large number of large sculptures of very good quality tells the same story in a different way. We had no idea the Park just opened (the official grand opening is not until June 19, 2024), and that park is now undergoing a soft opening only. It is an important supplement to the museum.

Unfortunately, neither museum allows photographs.

We also went to the Rosa Parks Museum, a small museum operated by Troy University. It’s a Montgomery story, so it was worth seeing although there was some redundancy with what is told about Parks at the Legacy Museum. And you can take pictures.

And finally, as Montgomery was the first capital of the Confederacy, we went to see the first “White House” where Jefferson Davis lived before the capital was moved to Richmond. I was surprised to see it right next to the Capitol. Then we read this was not the original site, but that the house was moved to this site a mere 103 years ago.

Food today? Not important. An odd lunch at the museum, and a Mexican dinner at Ixtapa.

Digression 3. Did you know that not that long ago the Mexican government financed two new resorts to build up tourism? One they call Ixtapa. The other they called Cancun.

Today we are off to Selma.