Good morning! Breakfast today is at The Pizitz Food Hall. It's exactly what the name says,
you know? It's like a gallery with some places to eat. Some open for breakfast,
some don't, and we're here to try a typical Alabama biscuit
Yes, ma'am
That's mine
This corner here is known as the
"heaviest corner on Earth"
That's because in the beginning of the 20th century
4 tall buildings were built here
basically at the same time
They were among the tallest buildings in the south
This is Morris Avenue, one of the oldest avenues
in Birmingham if not the oldest
And it maintains the original cobblestones on the street
This is a peanut store!
And right here in front of it you smell it!
Oh my God!
This was a street of produce
This was a street where you came to buy
eggs and chickens and coffee and peanuts
This business - Peanut Place - has been on Morris Avenue for 110 years
It was started by my grandfather around 1907
You look at this picture... The shop
owners and folks would come with their horse and buggy. It was a very busy street
at the turn of the century. You would have heard all kind of yelling and people
selling goods and you'd also have to watch your step because there were a lot of horses
Well, we're rotating... We're rotating peanuts over a fire. The fire is produced by gas
Approximately 3-375 (150-190 °C) Let me check my time
Peanuts are ready! We're going to try!
A lot of people survived the Great Depression eating peanuts
It's a very good, very good protein calorie source
It's so hot!
Now we're going back to some history. This church here is a landmark in the Civil Rights Movement
This was the first bombing
On this side it represents the third bombing
And the second bombing
was on the other side of the church
3 bombings, no loss of life
The bedroom was right here
so the bomb was right between the church and the house
This place to us is a very sacred place. It's sacred for a number of reasons for us because it is
a church, but also because it is a place
where, many believe and I also believe,
modern civil rights movement started.
They were common everyday blue-collar
people who came into this place every Monday night and they stood for something
But the bombings also helped to solidify what they stood for. It was meant to cause them to be
afraid but it had the opposite effect.
If a woman wanted to buy a hat, let's say
it's coming up Easter or whatever and I needed a new hat, in some department
stores you could not try the hat on. If they allowed you to try the hat on
they put a plastic bag over the lady's head then allowed her to do it
But I want you to understand the humiliation faced every day and you got to
understand that every time the United States required anything of its citizens
it didn't ask if you were black, if you were brown or if you were white
If we were involved in a war, were blacks drafted? Did we go and fight? Of course we did!
When it came time to pay taxes, did blacks pay taxes? Of course!
If we were paying money for schools, why don't we have a school?
If we were paying money for libraries, why can't we go?
So this idea of this attacking segregation at all levels started right here at Bethel Baptist Church
The number one irritant on a daily basis was the city bus. It was number one, every day
somebody angry about what happens on the bus and in Alabama and in Birmingham,
definitely Montgomery, the bus driver had the same powers as a police officer
So if the bus driver gave you an order, told you to do something and you didn't do it,
then he could very easily have you arrested
So bus boycotts very, very common
Christmas in 1956 came on a Tuesday so
the Sunday prior to Christmas Reverend Shuttlesworth told his congregation
that the day after Christmas, on Wednesday, "we're gonna ride the bus on
an integrated fashion" and the reason he did that,
the Supreme Court had ruled in November on the Montgomery case that segregation
on buses was illegal, so he said "okay, so on Wednesday we're gonna ride the bus"
"You put your money in and you sit down"
People heard or found out about that, so Christmas night he's sitting in his
bedroom, he gets a gift of 16 sticks of dynamite
He said he was actually just blown up with the mattress still up under him
He walks out of the back of that rubble house you see here, by then there's
a big crowd in front, the police got here within seconds
The very next day he did what he said he was gonna do
about 200 people joined him in riding the bus
He was arrested, but he did what he did
There's so much history here, it's impressive! And when you hear people
talking about everything that happened here you just get so touched
When people come we're trying to get them to sign this to give us an idea about their visit and
whether or not the information we provided for them actually enlightened them on
the civil rights movement and the importance of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth
and Bethel Baptist Church. So if you'll notice here we have young
people coming from Cambodia, from Laos, we have several university students,
Penn State came recently, we had a family from Seattle and not sure where they are on
the canvas but we also had a family to come from Australia
There's the message
Love always prevails | With love, Renata from Brazil