Journal 2 - Birmingham, AL

Birmingham, AL 01:07AM Jan 9, 2012

Ebenzer Baptist Church - Brimingham, AL

I woke up early today and had a breakfast before heading to the Ebenezer Baptist Church. It seemed like the church was newly built and everything in the hall were in good quality. There was a female Black choir group on the stage, and they sang just simply fabulous with perfect pitch and emotions. The spiritual songs are full of dynamics and passions, I was totally motivated too.For now, I deeply understood how churches influenced the civil right movement on organizing protests in early 20th century. After this, we had a group photo, then I had a glance on the fire department on the same street. Once, our tour guide was ready in the fire department and then she brought us to the Martin Luther king’s Birth home which was amazing that it still preserved tons of Dr. King’s used stuffs in the house. It was also interesting to know that the low-class, middle-class, and high-class houses were all located on the same avenue. After lunch, we were heading to Birmingham Civil Rights Institute which has rich details on revealing slices of black and whites life in Alabama from the late 1800s to present. There was a series of galleries tells the sories of daily life for African- American in the state and the nation and how ere the different from the lives of white people that took for granted. Although it was amazing to see that information in the Civil Right institute, I decided to walk to the Birmingham Public library.

Brimingham Public Library , Alabama

It is located on 21st street, where is behind the Wells Fargo building. It was worth to be there, since the old public library is a classic architecture, which is like the Harvard University Library. The New public library is mainly made of glasses. It was beautiful to see those architectures in Birmingham, AL. During the dinner time, I was totally stuffed by steaks and fried Chicken. Thanks to school that dinner was funded by the foundation and the food was really good. We had a guest speaker, Pamela King, History Professor at University of Alabama, Birmingham in the hotel conference room. It was a long day, but it was very fun and a lot to see !