AfricanAmericans

Lower East Side Tenement Museum National Historic Site

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While I took the 1902 tour focusing on Jewish immigrants and the beef riots, the film in the museum was about two Joseph Moores, one black and one Irish, and explored the unequal outcomes dictated by law and society. I highly recommend both, as seldom does history provide so valuable a perspective on current issues such as the importance of activism in resisting inequality and injustice and as the long term impact of systemic racism.

The Levine family lived and worked in a three-room sweatshop tenement producing garments like those above (the one on the right is original), and their butcher’s family lived and worked in the basement. In the spring of 1902, the new scion of the Armour meatpacking firm of Chicago decided to hike the price of Kosher beef by 50%. He was trying to build an estate for his wife which would include a bowling alley, 20 marble fireplaces, fish ponds, a large herd of deer, and a greenhouse for growing oranges. (He inspired Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle). The Beef Trust had a monopoly on Kosher beef in New York City (at the time the largest Jewish city in the world), so they simply dictated the new price to all the butchers. The firm was renowned for low pay, strike-breaking, and hardball tactics to get whatever they wanted.

But they underestimated the Jewish housewives of the Lower East Side tenements. The women organized, boycotted, threw bricks through butcher shop windows, burned meat on their floors and even climbed down from the synagogue balconies to throw raw ground beef in the butchers’ faces. In a month, the price rise was reduced by 2/3rds, and a whole generation of suffragettes, union leaders and political activists was born. (In my first job, I worked with old women who had numbers tattooed on their arms, and they were not to be underestimated).

One of the historic Orchard St buildings is undergoing renovations, but all the tours, including the walking tours of the neighborhood are insightful. I recommend Katz’s deli or Russ & Daughters for a bite before or after your tour.

Gateway Arch National Park

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This park is the lynchpin of the nation. If it were removed, the whole country would fall apart.

OK, maybe not, but it is an important spot. The domed courthouse above heard the infamous Dred Scott case, which was used by the Supreme Court to take the country backwards, deny people their basic rights and help spark the Civil War. (How times change). The arch represents a gateway to western expansion, facilitated by Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and subsequently explored by Lewis & Clark from here.

Many factors came together for the territory to wind up as ~12 US states. France traded with the Native Americans who lived there, and all along the rivers there were French communities, from Pittsburgh to St Louis and from Quebec to New Orleans. Shortly before we became independent, Britain declared war on France, used their ships to take Quebec and blockaded Spain from their colonies, and in exchange for peace, they took Canada and Florida, while France kept Haiti and Spain wound up with the Louisiana territory.

That peace treaty didn’t last long. The British heavily taxed the colonists to pay for that war (bad idea), the US declared independence (and won), the slaves in Haiti revolted (and won), Spain secretly gave Louisiana back to France, and France & Spain were preparing to invade England (and lose). Amidst this chaos, Napoleon wanted cash more than colonies that he couldn’t control, and Jefferson wanted to secure the Mississippi and expand our new country. Both sides approached each other to make a deal.

Nicodemus National Historic Site

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A promised utopia for ex-slaves, this remarkable small town has also, like my last stop, preserved its cultural heritage. Named for both Nicodemus who asked Jesus the price of rebirth and for the old spiritual ”Wake Nicodemus” who asked to be awakened for the Jubilee, perhaps the best preserved and restored building is the AME Church above. But in the visitor center I met the living exhibits: the 5th, 6th and 7th generation descendants of those resilient settlers who survived in the remote prairie. They explained to me that while the town is extremely small today, every year in the last full week of July, many more descendants return for a reunion and keep the unbroken traditions thriving.

Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument

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I had forgotten that it was a children’s march on Palm Sunday that was assaulted by dogs and water cannon. Under city ordinance, it was illegal for children of different races to play together. In my view, the longer a system of injustice is allowed to stand, the more deeply engrained it becomes. The Civil Rights Institute does a powerful job of setting the scene, where African Americans worked in the steel mills and mines and lived in the city behind a color line. People like Bull Connor and the mayor grew up believing that segregation was normal, right and beneficial. They didn’t play with African American children as kids, and as adults they attacked them, peacefully assembled, wearing Sunday clothes, in a park, outside the 16th St Baptist Church, singing songs. The children had learned from Dr King not to fear jail when doing no wrong, but the assault against them was brutal, and televised.

At the time, America was shocked and voiced outrage. This week children were slaughtered in yet another episode of gun violence. I wonder if we’re sufficiently outraged to change the system as those kids in Birmingham did.

“A man dies when he doesn’t stand up for injustice.”

Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park

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Every year winning poems are chosen from children around the world for visitors to admire along with the roses. The sentiments are moving testimonials to his life, ideals and inspiration, expressed with the moral clarity and unbridled hope of children.

The short films & exhibits in the visitor center capture Dr King’s life as the heart and soul of the Civil Rights movement, as well as his wish that we continue. His birthplace, church, center for non-violence and grave are overwhelming, but I was struck by how the community continues to gather here daily for many different events and causes. His passion for justice and righteousness inspire action every day.

Today I’m inspired by one of his thoughts in his letter from a Birmingham jail, about how difficult it is to be told to wait after enduring centuries of suffering. Earth has suffered centuries of pollution, and always the message to environmentalists is to wait. Wait for new technologies, wait for laws, people and society to change, and wait until the polluters have made more money, and then, maybe…. But now we have no more time to wait. We’re moving quickly to catastrophe, wasting precious time on inaction, and extinguishing species without pause. Unless we act to stop burning fossil fuels now, we condemn much life on earth to end.

Kings Mountain National Military Park

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After the British took Charleston, they moved inland trying to gain momentum and more loyalists. Here, they lined this narrow ridge with skilled marksmen prepared to defend the high ground. The patriots had troops moving overland from the northwest and local milita massing on the other side. Using Native American tactics of advancing from tree to tree, the patriots were able to get close on both sides and catch the defenders in a deadly crossfire. Having learned that the British commander was wearing a checkered jacket, they targeted and eliminated him, winning a decisive battle here.

The first of the three African American patriots memorialized above, Elaias Bowman, was a free militiaman, one of several who shot the British commander. For some reason that I can’t fathom, there’s a far bigger memorial to the British commander, a Scot named Ferguson, and local visitors speak of him fondly, often leaving stones near his marker. I left a stone for the patriot Bowman instead.

Camp Nelson National Monument

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While obviously fortified, the camp is best remembered as a refugee and training site for escaped and liberated slaves to join the Union. A heartless commander here burned shelters before winter to try to dissuade refugees from staying, leading to over 100 deaths from exposure, national outrage and new legislation to build more permanent refugee shelters at many Union bases, including food, clothing & education. There’s a community nearby that persists since that time. Many of the US Colored Troops that served, especially in the second half of the war, were trained here.

Stones River National Battlefield

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This was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Lincoln wanted a victory and ordered General Rosencrans to advance up the Nashville Pike. The confederates struck hard, the union army dug in, set up artillery and won the day. The photo shows part of the remains of Fort Rosencrans built to defend the supply route for the rest of the war.

African American labor typically built these massive earthen fortifications, and despite the Union victory, their new rights were often denied.