I really like Montgomery, possibly because it is a State Capitol so a bit more organised and definitely richer. We walked down to the visitor centre to pick up a map and watch a film on the main attractions in town then we set off on a walk around the main sites. We started at the Riverfront which was the centre of business in the area, it is where both the slaves were shipped into and where the cotton was shipped out. There was once a ramp that ran down from the cotton gin to the waterfront where they have created a timeline of Montgomery starting from when it was home to the Indians right up until today. There was a sign on the riverfront that showed the level the river reached when it flooded, it said that it reached 87 feet which is pretty much road level. We walked up towards the State Capitol building, past the Judicial building which is home to the Supreme Court of Alabama and the State Law Library, and the Alabama State Bar headquarters. A couple of roads down from the Capitol building is Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church which was the only church where Rev. Martin Luther King Junior was actually the preacher. There are roadworks in front of the building as they are laying a new monument to celebrate 200 years of Montgomery. We managed to navigate our way round the building works and just as we arrived at the steps a load of people appeared half of whom were wearing mascot costumes, we later found out that it is the start of the college football season and these are all the Alabama university mascots. Because of this we couldn’t go in the front door so we walked round the back and finally found a way in. Montgomery became Alabama’s capital in 1847, the present Capitol on “Goat Hill” dates from 1850-51. It has been the site of two fairly major historical events. The first in 1861 when the Confederate States of America was born in the Senate Chamber when delegates voted to establish a new nation. It was also where in 1965 the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March ended. There are three floors to the building. The first had the Supreme Court Library and the old Supreme Court chamber, both now empty but impressively large rooms all the same. It is also where the Original Governor’s Suite is, which we couldn’t get into and the old Treasurers Office which again shouldn’t have been open but someone was using the rooms so we could go a little way in and have a look around. We then went up to the second floor which is probably the most impressive. There is a Rotunda which was built in 1906 with a number of murals around the walls. This is also where the old house Chamber is, originally a plain whitewashed space, the House chamber was decoratively painted in 1869 – 70. Opposite is the old Senate Chamber which is the most historic room of the Capitol. it was here in February in 1861 that delegates from the seceding southern states organised the Confederate States of America. The chamber stopped being used in the mid 1980s and has been restored to as close as possible in appearance at that time. The third floor has the public viewing galleries for both the House and the Senate. Having walked all the way round the building we left by the front door as the mascots and associated dignitaries had moved on. From here we walked to the First Whitehouse of the Confederacy, this was where Jefferson Davis and family lived from February 1861 to May 1861 as President of the Confederacy until the capital moved to Richmond Virginia. Two or three blocks further down the road is the home of Dr King from 1954 to 1960 when he was Pastor at the Dexter Church. It was then time to return to downtown past the Civil Rights Memorial Centre, we decided that we wouldn’t go in as we have been in a couple of Civil Rights museums recently but this one did have an interesting memorial outside, it was actually a water feature where water emerges from the centre of a table and flows across the top, on the table are a number of key events in the struggle for civil rights. On the wall behind is Dr King Jr’s well known paraphrase of Amos 5:24 We will not be satisfied “until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream” From there we walked past the Dowe houses which are three residential houses that are all that remains of the 19th century neighbourhood. The first house was built by an Irish Merchant, then his wife built one for some of the children and a third one was built for either more children or grandchildren not sure which. Just down the road from there is the Freedom Rides Museum which is located in the former Greyhound Bus Station. We went in and had a look round but it is a really small museum so it didn’t take very long, they do have some interviews with surviving freedom riders who described what happened to them. Just down the road from here is where Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man. It is strange as both Chris and I expected there to be a bus stop or something significant but all there is now is a maple leaf on the floor and a plaque if you look hard enough for it! This is also the site of one of the major slave markets so maybe they were not sure how to represent these two facts. There are two lines not the road which we decided probably mark when the bus was parked when the driver called for the police but there is nothing around it to explain what it was so we just had to guess. By the time we had done all of this we were back at the hotel so we decided to get a late lunch / early dinner. Unfortunately all the restaurants in the area seem to close between lunch and evening meal so we had to walk up the road to the pizza place which luckily was open all day and we had a really nice pizza and a much needed drink before heading back to the hotel for a shower and a relax.
