Darien GA

Bearing the same name as the failed Central American colony that almost bankrupted Scotland in 1698, Darien in southern Georgia was ‘founded’ by a group of highland 'warriors' around forty years later. I read somewhere that the few survivors from that ill-fated attempt to found a Scottish empire actually came to Darien Georgia after the event.

So it really was no surprise to find posters o’ men in kilts for the annual ‘Heritage Day’ and the Kirkin o’ the Tartan when I arrived there for a bit of latter day exploration. I’ve only ever seen the Kirkin in NZ, in fact I’d never heard of it before I went to the very kirk in Waipu where the tradition was being replayed.

Given the reputation of parts of the US, it was no surprise either to count the number of churches in a town of only 1800 people. There are definitely more houses of worship than public houses in this wee corner of the globe – unlike where some of those early settlers came from. Although no law requires it now, there is visible separation of black and white. Each group seems to prefer their own style of worship, and there sure is plenty of choice. African Baptist seems a clear one, though I wonder how one decides whether one is First Presbyterian or simply Presbyterian?

Being a stranger to most of these traditions, and finding little else to do on Sunday, I passed a pleasant few hours strolling around eavesdropping on different congregations. Although I’m sure they exist, I didn’t find any white ones ‘giving it laldy’ to quite the same extent as this.

African Baptist.mov (coming soon - upload failed on 1st attempt)

The book ‘Praying for Sheetrock’ by Melissa Fay Greene recounts Darien’s recent history much better than I ever could. Its also a great read, which I recommend it to anyone interested in what life was like in a small town with a corrupt dynasty of Sheriffs in the deep south in the decades before and after the civil rights movement hit the headlines in the 1960s.

Just a few snippets of other things that found their way into my photo collection - originally, buildings were made of ‘tabby’ a mix of lime, sand, and oyster shells. Although few actual buildings remain - an African Episcopal church being probably the best example - the strength of a tabby wall is obvious with this huge tree growing on top.

Darien is sited on a big river (Altamaha) and close to the coast so seafood is always on the menu.

And finally – I just happened to be walking down the street when a fleet of school buses was queuing to cross the road.


Next - reconstructed Fort King George, Sapelo Island and life on a rice plantation.

Unseasonally wet and perfect conference weather

It should be spring by now in Southern Georgia but this year, blossom festivals had to make do with a few unexploded buds. Apart from the first day, which was fine but chilly, it rained every day – not just a fine drizzle but torrents that Auckland would not be ashamed of.

Since there was no chance of walking between the hotel and the campus, it really didn’t matter. It was perfect conference weather in fact, as there was no temptation to get out of doors for a breath of fresh air.

The last day it eased off and I did just that. It stayed dry for the short walk to the wild life refuge on the edge of the campus, where I met some interesting local species.

Quite a different bunch to their NZ counterparts.

Birmingham – a tragic tale

I heard it said a few times that Birmingham grew from a railway crossing in a cornfield. Something else about it surprised me - the first impression from the air of a lush green valley edged by rolling woodland hills. Early settlers lived in this beautiful pastoral setting, surrounded by red rock outcrops, fertile land, clear streams with plenty of fish and wildlife to stock the larder. Davy Crockett passed thro in 1819, and spread the word that Jonesboro, as it was then called, was a great place to settle.

The area was rich in mineral wealth – coal and iron ore – but it wasn’t until after reconstruction and the railroad that transport out of the area became feasible. That kind of wealth was a curse for the working classes as well as a blessing for just a few.

Life in frontier towns was never easy. When Birmingham was founded in 1871, life there was further complicated by competition between land speculators over the site for the new city. The winning bid put profit over reason, and settlers had to solve the problem of getting water from seven miles further away than if the other bid had won. The cost was decades of poor sanitation, high mortality and chronic ill health. Cholera and scarlet fever were common, and typhoid an annual caller over many years. Threats of bankruptcy and a fluctuating population added to the burden of the settlers’ choice to build two of everything, churches, schools, bus station waiting rooms… how else could segregation be supported after slavery was abolished?

A well known fact about Birmingham is that the Ku Klux Klan was a powerful force there. What I didn’t know about the organization that moved on to condone murder and other atrocities, started out as a civic club with broad public support and influential citizens among its members. Its founding aim was to protect moral standards that were ‘threatened by industry and urbanization’. The number and variety of churches around Birmingham leave little need to guess what kind of morals those were, or what traditions the city was built upon. This one was obviously built when the city was seeing better days.

On another side of the junction at Five Points South, a different congregation displays Jesus in a lovely shade of brown. Don't go as far as curly hair though.

Like many industrial cities, Birmingham suffered from poor labour relations until the mid-20^th century. Mining and steel workers demanded better compensation for appalling working conditions, and the right to be paid in dollars rather than scrip that could only be spent at the company store. Unemployment soared during frequent depressions and the eventual decline of the industries that once kept the city alive. The rules may have changed, but the shadow of slavery stayed to haunt the workers whose energy it fed on - and didn't discriminate between black and white.

The worst depression hit in the early 1930s. Absentee landlords manipulated the local economy for their own advantage. Loan sharks from other cities nearly bankrupted it once again. Statistics painted a grim picture. Birmingham was the ‘murder capital’ of the world, ranked no 2 in the US for the rate of STDs, had most illiterate people and the lowest disposable income. I read somewhere that a human trait is to stand on the backs of others so you know you are improving yourself. Might that help to make sense of the atrocious treatment of blacks by anyone who could claim to be one step higher?

To quote one local source, ‘Birmingham… failed to develop a real community spirit. The future continues to lie in hands that have milked and hamstrung it for 75 years.’

And there was more. A US Supreme Court decision in 1954 legally ended segregation and kick started the worst period of the ill-fated city’s history. Birmingham’s police commissioner Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor - sounding remarkably like a recently retired president - summed up his views with the statement that ‘no whites and no negroes will segregate together while I am police commissioner’. Could they be related? Attended the same English class maybe?

Connor was already infamous for heavy-handed ways of dealing with perceived threats, and certainly rose to the challenge of the civil rights movement in his own inimitable way. In a backhanded way, he did a lot to further the cause of equality when news of what he was up to reached the rest of the US and the world. Thankfully, in 2010, the civil rights struggle is confined to the annals of history, and the city seems to have recovered to a degree.

Alternatives to heavy industries have grown up. A massive university medical facility now dominates the south side of the city, offering white-collar jobs to help stop everyone young with an education heading off at the first opportunity. There has been more than one black mayor and membership of the representative council is reasonably well split.

But to a casual visitor nearly 50 years on from the era of violence and unbelievable bigotry, it seems the problem has not gone away. Private schools for white kids started up when segregation in state schools was ruled unconstitutional. People who didn’t want to integrate and could afford to, shifted out of the city to surrounding municipalities that remain administratively separate from Birmingham. Technically they are integrated communities, but I didn’t get a chance to look into the actuality. If I did, I suspect I’d find all sorts of people with opinions and prejudices like anywhere else. There may or may not be lines drawn on the basis of colour, but I expect there are lines. There is talk of rationalizing the regional councils, but the word on the street is that it’s too hard. (They should come and talk to Auckland – in fact, I wonder if they’d like Rodney Hide – gift wrapped!)

Poverty, unemployment and low educational standards are disproportionately black problems. The mentality that chose, in the 1960s, to close public parks, swimming pools and other amenities rather than integrate them did not disappear overnight, or even over a half century in some cases. And then there are black people’s perspectives, which I had very little opportunity to explore…

By the time segregation legally ended, there was a parallel society with its own economy and distinctive culture. Parts of the historic black business district around 4^th Avenue North have been preserved.

On my long Sunday walkabout, I could see that people coming and going from numerous churches were separated down colour lines. One or two blacks may have joined the white churches, but I didn’t see a single white in a black congregation, except for what looked like a multi-coloured group of tourists coming out of 16^th St Baptist with a guide.

The renowned ‘southern hospitality’ looks like hard glaze on the surface but what lies beneath it, I am left to wonder.

To close on a lighter note, I found a fabulous second hand shop to browse.

I also took some shots that could have passed for Birmingham England with the red brick buildings, factory chimneys and a fading industrial facade. The pristine blue sky gives it away!

I never did quite catch why the name Birmingham was chosen – there must be some connection methinks. I also think I succeeded in getting off the popular tourist trail with that brief stop over. Amazing what can be covered in two short days. I haven't even mentioned the afternoon I spent in the magnificent public library, though if you wondered about my sources, that's the answer.

Next stop is somewhere completely different - Georgia Southern University in Statesboro for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference. Might skip writing that one up and go direct to Savannah, the south coast and Sea Islands.

Fly thro - Birmingham Alabama

I was surprised by my own naivety the first night in Birmingham. I’d come to see the Civil Rights Institute and walk the same ground as people made famous by their stand against segregation – most notably in the 1960s – but also long before and after those pivotal years.

I arrived late afternoon on Saturday. What the Internet never told me about the decent looking and affordable Redmond Hotel was that everything around its CBD location is closed after about 8pm on Friday. A free shuttle to downtown destinations reminded me of Trip Advisor comments that the area might not be too safe at night. It didn’t feel dodgy. I mean, how dangerous can deserted be?

The shuttle driver made an excellent choice dropping me off at a barn sized seafood market and restaurant with fish and lobsters hanging around in tanks til they got chosen and cooked. I couldn’t help but notice that black and white may be eating in the same restaurant, but not at the same table. I felt naive at my own reaction, but reading about events like slavery and the civil rights movement must be like looking at food without ever getting to smell, taste or feel the texture of it. A poor analogy for something of such awful significance, I know.

Next day was the 45^th anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Selma, Alabama where state and local lawmen attacked civil rights marchers demanding the right to vote for black American citizens. I spent the morning in Ingram Park, a local monument to the movement and hanging around 16^th St Baptist church. I had thought of attending the service there but decided it would be arrogant to think I could go there just to satisfy my own curiosity.

It’s hard to try and think inside the minds of the white ‘Christians’ (KKK members) who bombed this church on a quiet Sunday morning in 1963 killing four young black girls. I did try, and in the history of the ‘Magic City’ as Birmingham came to be known in the early days, I think I found some clues. To be continued.

In America

This is just a quick note to re-start the engine of this too-long-idle blog with something - one of many somethings - that struck me as amusing/endearing on the long trip through to Birmingham Alabama. A plane change in Houston Texas let me loose on a Livestock Show and Rodeo School Art Programme exhibition. All very charming and culturally informative. Should one of the artists ever see this, I hope they will forgive my bad sense of humour for what it did to their excellent and presumably innocent work. See below, you’ll know which one I mean!

How the west was won

One more wrap

Soft porn Texas style

Birmingham is not my final destination. Just somewhere to break the journey without, I imagine, tripping over too many tourists. I read about it as a hotspot of the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s, but had no idea what it was like until I landed here on a Friday evening in spring 2010. First impressions: cold and crisp, deep southern accents on people all shapes, sizes and shades of white, brown and black, very industrial, and almost deserted.

The first thing I learned was that the central business district where I’d picked to stay makes possum road pizza look energetic on a weekend. It’s also got a derelict air about it, like many city centres whose populations have fled to the suburbs. The reasons for departing this city centre have both common and unusual threads, which I’ll come back to later. The other first impression was that it could easily pass for Birmingham England with lots of red brick infill between elaborate older buildings, a horizon dotted with church spires, factory chimneys, railroads and skeletons of heavy industry strewn around the skyline.

Which Birmingham?

Watch this space for slightly more serious investigation of a place with a long troubled past - thanks largely to the self-same capitalism system I heard a very (over?) confident, gray-haired, gray-suited earnest man on telly saying that the country needs more of, and more freedom for. Looking at Birmingham's history, I wonder how many details he considers desirable. Is it just the profits and periods of high employment, or the corruption, soaring crime rates, poor pay, abysmal conditions and exploitation of workers as well?