We arrived in Tuskegee, AL early and toured a wonderful, eye opening museum, the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center. It traced the history of the slave from the earliest times to the time that they were freed paralleling their history with that of this country and the world. It also covered the contributions of Native Americans as well as African Americans in the history of Alabama. The center portrayed the abuses of these peoples through slavery, segregation and lack of civil rights.

Instrumental in the development of the Center is Fred Gray, a civil rights lawyer who was prominent in the civil rights movement. He spoke with us for about an hour essentially giving us his life history to date, but specifically focusing on his significant involvement with Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., during the 1960’s civil rights movement. Also, he was very involved with the NAACP from a legal perspective, fighting many cases and litigating to integrate higher education institutions.

We left Tuskegee, bound for the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, AL, a city that in many ways has maintained much of the architecture of the Old South, that elderly blacks have grown to dislike, due to the violence and mistreatment of the 1800s and early to late 1900s, times when the African American was supposed to be free, but wasn’t. The museum is outstanding. Unfortunately, pictures of the inside of the exhibits were forbidden. Seeing the bus and listening to the portrayals of what happened not only to her but to so many others sent ice-chilling shivers up and down my spine.