The Civil Rights Institute

The permanent exhibit of the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, begins with a replica of the iconic Elliott Erwitt photograph of the two water fountains, one marked “white” and the other marked “colored.” Walking passed the fountains—connected to the same pipe but clearly offering a different drinking experience—forces the participant to feel as if he has traveled through time, to a place where segregation and Jim Crow were the norms.

With Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for the president of the United States, a lot has changed since the photo was taken in 1950. Though clearly a moment of historical significance for African-Americans and Americans in general, Obama’s candidacy is about much more than just race. I talked with nearly all of the young people who were at the museum at the same time as me (all of them African-American), and none of them said that Obama’s being black had much affect on their decision to vote for him (but they all did say they were going to vote for him). Many of the people I talked with recognized how important an moment it was for the African-American community, but said that just that fact would not have been nearly enough to vote for Obama.

Patrick Banks, a 24 year old, was leading a group of young African-Americans and Jews on a trip through the South when I met him in the Institute.

“I like Obama because he is doing the same kind of thing this trip does,” Banks said. “We are teaching these to become agents of change. It’s about looking forward. Jews and blacks have had plenty of adversity in the past, but with enough agents of change, the future can look much brighter. Barack is looking forward where McCain is looking back. That’s why you hear McCain talk so much about his experience, and credential wise he has Barack beat. But, he is stagnant. McCain might have the credentials, but it is not about that.”

Banks also said his choice to vote for Obama was not affected by the candidate’s race. In fact, he said that he initially supported John Edwards.

Near the end of the self-guided tour, I met a young man named Frederick Williams. Williams stood a good 6’3 with a strong build and an even stronger handshake. He wore a diamond stud in his ear and a neatly groomed goatee. Having just returned from Iraq, Williams said his identity as a soldier was more important in the political scene than his identity as a black man.

“It doesn’t matter what your skin color is, it matters what your policy is,” he said about whether or not he considered Obama’s race as a factor in his voting.  “It’s easy to look at Barack’s skin color and think that he automatically represents change. He represents change because of the direction he wants to take the country in. I was in Iraq, and if Barack wanted to keep us there, it wouldn’t matter what his skin color was, I wouldn’t vote for him. Keeping us in war, that’s not change.  I want someone who is not just going to get us out, but have a plan. If we just leave, it’s going to be chaos out there, and I think and hope that Barack won’t just high tail it out of there without a plan.”

From the Birmingham News

Birmingham, Alabama: The front page of the Birmingham News has a headline that reads: “Jobless rate hit 3½ year high.” The article discusses how the Alabama jobless rate has increased up to 4.7% (up from 3.5% in May of last year). Although still below the national average of 5.5%, it has raised some concern.

While in Wal-Mart in Winfield, Alabama I talked to one young employee who wouldn’t have even been there if it wasn’t for the weakening economy and job market.

“I started working here so I could shop here for a discount,” the 22-year old boy named Sam said. “I can buy anything I need right after work, and can save myself money.”

He said that with the economy the way it is, it will not only affect his job choice, but also affect who he votes for.

“I’m sure there are plenty of things I should pay attention to, like the war and the environment or whatever, but what I really need is a tax break,” he said. “I can’t vote democratic if they are just going to raise taxes, unless I want to work for here for ever just to get the discount.”

The tractor pull

Hazel Green, Alabama: “Where are your redneck clothes?” a girl named Hannah asked me from the bleachers. I wore a green polo shirt and khakis. Everyone else wore sleeveless shirts and jeans.

The Hazel Green annual tractor pull attracted some 1,500 people to watch as local farmers showed off their 4,000 horsepower diesel tractors (for competition use only). The event began with a tractor sitting at the start of a dirt pathway. A group of men hitched an enormous trailer carrying a weight known as the sled. The machine revved its engine sending a geyser of grey and then black smoke into the air, and suddenly, took off down the path with a deafening shriek. As the tractor careened to the end of the path, the sled slide down toward the front end of the trailer, pushing the weight into the back of the tractor and eventually causing it to stop. Whoever pulled the weight the farthest, won.

In addition to being quite a spectacle, the tractor pull was also a meeting ground for local young people. One guy described it to me as “the perfect place to find girls.” Groups gathered away from the roar of the tractors, beside concession stands shilling corn on the cob and T-shirts that read, “I love HIS big tractor” and “Long Live Dale, Jr.”

Despite being a clear interloper with my “country-club” attire, I decided to brave the masses and see what the average young tractor-pulling enthusiast felt about Barack Obama and John McCain.

“Here’s what I have to say about politics,” said a friendly sounding baby-faced high school graduate named Adam, “fuck it. Still though, I’m going to vote for John McCain because I don’t want to black Muslim in charge of this country. You just can’t trust a black man with this country, what can I say?”

His girlfriend, Brittney stood beside him smiling. Parting her short blond hair and standing up as tall as she could, (no more than 5’2”) she spoke next.

“It’s nothing personal to Obama,” she said with an eerily sweet drawl, “but it’s like I learned in church: As a black man trying to be a leader, he is like the anti-Christ. If he were to become president, it would be the beginning of what could be called an apocalypse.”

The third member of the group, another recent high school grad named Chris, chimed in.

“There’s really nothing I can do about it,” he said. “I’m a Southern boy, born and bred, and I just can’t have a black president, and there’s nothing more to say about it.”

The next group I approached was a group of six, the most prominent of which was a 19-year-old who weighed well over 300 pounds and went by Big Cal.

“Ah, man,” he said, “you don’t want to know what I have to say about it. Plus, ain’t know newspaper that would print what I have to say.” When I told him I wanted to hear what everyone had to say he reluctantly responded in a slow southern drawl, “All I know is I’d rather not see that Jew win. Having a Muslim nigger as our president, that’s not OK.”

Two of his friends, who referred to themselves as “Little Curt” and “Littler Curt,” nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, it can’t be a black or a woman,” Little Curt said.

When I told him he didn’t have to worry about a woman anymore, he had an answer.

“Well,” he said, “we damn sure have to worry since Obama is going to make her his vice president. And everyone knows that motherfucker is going to get shot.”

One day after writing this post, the Washington Post leads with this story about racism in the U.S.

Education in Rocket City

Huntsville, Alabama: Wherever you go in Huntsville, you are never more than a couple hundred yards away from a replica of a rocket. They’re on the golf courses, they’re in the barbeque joints and they’re along the highways. Nicknamed “Rocket City,” Huntsville has been integral in U.S. space exploration from the time Wernher von Braun came over to develop rocketry for the U.S. Army in the 1950s. Since then the city has been responsible for designing the Redstone ballistic missile (the type of rocket power that carried the first U.S. satellite and astronauts into space), and the Saturn V, which is still the most powerful launch vehicle ever operated in the world.

Inside the offices of the Huntsville Times, the city paper with a circulation of 70,000, a wall pays tribute to the most important front pages through the decades. With Huntsville having been at the forefront of space exploration, it is not surprising that many of the banner headlines have to do with aerospace. “Man Enters Space,” says one from April 12^th, 1961. “Jupiter-C Puts Up Moon,” and “Eisenhower Dedicates Marshall Space Flight Center” say two more.

Steve Campbell, a reporter for the Huntsville Times with a disarming southern accent says to us, “Well, I guess these are all the things Huntsville finds important.”

Campbell, who is 24, has been working for the paper for more than two years, and has essentially been put on an education beat (in fact, he had just come from covering a school board meeting). For him, “what’s important” seems to be slightly different from what’s on the wall. Slender and dressed in his words, “like [he] is trying to sell us real estate in the suburbs” in a blue button-down and khakis, Campbell talks earnestly about how important fixing the country’s educational system is. Having spent years reporting on the local schools, Campbell has become an expert on what works and what doesn’t in Huntsville.

“First of all, I am not a fan of no child left behind,” he says. “There is no federal guideline for the tests, so each state determines on its own what qualifies as adequate yearly progress. Their funding is based on these interpretations. The state is going to determine how well they do by setting their own guidelines. Plus, a lot of schools completely miss out on funding due to not meeting these requirements. This seems like penalizing the schools that need the most help.

Since this is a growing area, they are really scraping for dollars. There’s a huge influx of kids, looking for money any way they can get it. So to have a superficial policy that could take away a lot of money from you, that can be a huge factor in determining whether the Huntsville Schools are adequate or not.”

Campbell says he is not exactly sure how policy in Washington can fix the problems of individual schools, but he has seen what works on the ground level. He talks about a school named Lincoln Elementary, an all black school where almost all of the 150 students have free or reduced price lunch. Yet, despite the poverty, it is one of the top performing schools in the area.

“What makes this school perform so much better than Martin Luther King Elementary, a school with the same levels of poverty only 2 miles away?” he asks. “The reason it works is because dedicated group of volunteers nearby church. This group comes in and not only tutors the kids, but acts as the parental figures they don’t have at home. High levels of poverty inherently have high levels of dysfunctionality at home, and these volunteers help level the playing field.

I don’t know how you have the government do that, but that’s the way to do it. I had parents that pushed me hard in school, but plenty of people don’t. And not just poor people. Plenty of wealthy kids ignored by their parents too. There needs to be some kind of incentive, monetary, tax, to be a volunteer at a school, and there needs to be these same incentive to keep good teachers around.”