We made something of a "civil rights tour" yesterday. We visited The Legacy Museum first. It was a powerful experience. It was very much akin to the experience I had when I visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

It's very large, very well done, and profoundly affecting.

I think it's going to be a little while before I can write anything about it that makes sense.

I will say that it brought to mind Governor Ron DeSantis' use of police to go to the homes of Black people suspected of having voted "illegally" (despite being registered by their county supervisor of elections), in the middle of the night to arrest them. History doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes and that act was clearly, extremely and deliberately resonant with the history of white supremacy in the south. And anger was one of the complex mix of emotions I felt as I toured that museum.

We also visited the Rosa Parks Museum and Library, a more modest museum though it has a very thorough exhibit on the Montgomery bus boycott. That was a more positive experience, because you get to see the courage and the ingenuity of an oppressed minority (who happened to be the majority of the population) frustrate and infuriate their oppressors.

Our final stop was the Greyhound Bus Terminal where we learned about the Freedom Riders. I learned a lot there, and learned that I didn't know nearly enough about that effort and the courage it took for people to make it.

There is little in "southern heritage" to celebrate. It is largely a heritage of hate. I can understand why many people would rather not recall it, but it needs a light shining on it all the brighter to keep the darkness away.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:42 Saturday, 4 May 2024