Birmingham, Alabama

Today we went to Birmingham, the heart of the civil rights movement, in my eyes. It is where the most violence happened, where all the pictures we see in text books took place. The 16th street Baptist Church, where marches started, and Kelly Ingram Park, where protesters were beat down with dogs and water hoses. It's amazing, terrifying and break-taking to stand on that ground and think of what people went through, people who stood where you are standing. Birmingham is where all the marches ans protests and riots took place. I try to imagine what it would have been like to live there in the 1960s, black or white. If I was there, black or white, would I have taken part in the sit-ins and the freedom rides? Would I have risked my life? What would I believe? I can't imagine living in a city so deeply racial and divided. But then again, I've lived in a mostly white town my whole life...this is just a peek into the world of diversity and struggle.