Total miles traveled as of Day Ten: 4883
OK, it’s true that I am typing this post in the LAX airport while I wait for my connecting flight to SFO. It is also true that there is a guy pacing in front of me while talking on the phone who bears an eerie resemblance to my brother, Matt. I feel this compelling urge to go and start swearing at him – yep, must be related!
Day Ten of the trip was interesting in so many unexpected ways because the day did not turn out anywhere close to how I had planned it. My original plan was to wake up early, check out the Freedom Summer Driving Trail, get to Montgomery by about 2pm where I would go to Dr. King’s church and the Rosa Parks museum, and then book it up to Birmingham where I would drive around a bit before heading to Panama City, FL.
As you can probably tell from this blog, my days don’t typically go as planned.
The first stop in Hattiesburg was the Freedom Summer Trail (which is why I spent the night there). Well, first, let me give you some background on Freedom Summer. Back in the Summer of 1964, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi enlisted almost 1000 college student volunteers around the nation in a massive voter registration project. An appallingly low number of Black Mississippians were un-registered (about 7% of eligible voters) due systematic racist acts keeping them from registering. As you can expect, there was a huge amount of opposition to the registration drive by Mississippi residents, local law enforcement, local government, and to an extent, the federal government. One of the first incidents of the summer was the disappearance of three volunteers (two White students and one Black student) who were found dead – it is the subject of the movie Mississippi Burning. Despite intimidation, wrongful imprisonment, levying of hefty fines, and unlawful red tape at county offices, the students engaged in the Freedom Summer Campaign worked hard to get Blacks (often poor and illiterate) registered to vote. The entire story is covered in the book, Freedom Summer by Doug McAdam.
I got to the start of the Freedom Summer Trail around 10:15am. It actually begins at the Hattiesburg Visitor Center and apparently, they don’t get too many requests for the tour brochure. I did have a few conversations with people about the fact that I was coming from San Francisco. I was also concerned because I was in the South wearing this shirt (actually not quite that shirt, but it's a close approximation).
I felt that the tour itself could have been organized much better. The brochure had very little information about the sites or their significance. If I hadn’t read the book, I would have been lost. The most interesting part, though, was the fact that the tour takes you through some of the poorest parts of Hattiesburg. I was amazed by the abject poverty just blocks away from much more opulent areas – It was so poor in some areas that I felt like I was in another country. Had I not taken the tour, I would have missed all of it.
Unfortunately for me, the tour took much longer than I expected. I didn’t end up leaving Hattiesburg until after 12:30pm and the GPS didn’t have me projected to arrive in Montgomery until around 4:15pm. And then I hit a huge traffic jam due to a serious accident and road construction. After going a quarter mile in 30 minutes, I knew I wouldn’t arrive until after 5pm. And true to form, I got in right around 5:15pm.
Driving around Montgomery was fascinating. The downtown area is beautiful – it feels as if the whole area is a historic site and seems to call out to visitors, “come spend time here.” My fascination with Montgomery had to do with the dual nature of its confederate and civil rights roots. The First White House of the Confederacy is located in Montgomery just THREE BLOCKS away from the church where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the pastor. A short walk from there is the Rosa Parks Museum where the bus boycotts were staged.
Unfortunately, everything there was already closed, but on the flip side, this gives me a great reason to come back to Montgomery. The South is an area I definitely want to come back to and explore in much more depth. I had always short-changed it in my mind as a place that is racist or homophobic or anti-Semitic. Those elements ARE present and noticeable, but that’s not all that the South has to offer and it’s important for us not to forget that. For those of you interested in civil rights and learning our nation’s history with respect to that topic, a week-long trip to Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas will give you a very quick education.
The rest of my day included a quick drive up to Birmingham (just to poke around a bit) and then back on down to Panama City, FL. Nothing too much of note except for one part in Florida:
I was eating some beef jerky and a little bit got stuck in my teeth. I had about 60 miles to go to get to Panama City and my only dental floss was in the back of the CR-V. I figured I would just wait until I arrived to floss which was fine except that it was REALLY bothering me. I had to stop and get the floss out. When I pulled over, I noticed how beautiful a night it was (at 1am). A crescent moon was rising and the sky was clear. It was also really apparent how many animals were out (very loud) and that there was a ditch right next to where I pulled over. I suddenly became terrified that an alligator was going to get me which set me into an immediate attack of the willies. I quickly grabbed my toiletry bag and jumped back into the car. So much for big, tough Josh.
Oh, last two pictures... First, a lot of states for their state routs include an outline or a picture of their state on the signs. For Alabama, it looks like there are a couple of balls hanging from the state. And second, there are so many state highways and all that that junctions have ridiculous signs like these!
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