What did you say? Great grandpa did what?

After last night's incredible spiritual experience with Bishop Woods, today was a more academic look at Birmingham's history.  So this post will be a few random thoughts and some photos from today's field trip.
1.  Birmingham was established after the Civil War in 1871.  There were lots of shenanigans that went on to allow the Birmingham Realty Company to own the land where two major railroad lines would cross--the reason for the location--coal, iron ore and limestone--guess what you can produce when you mix those.
2.  One of the important historic sites in Birmingham is Arlington--an old plantation house built around 1850.  The website says that the house celebrates Birmingham's ante-bellum past.  Interesting, since the city has no ante-bellum history (see thought #1).
3.  Segregation was not a product of slavery.  Segregation didn't really exist in Alabama until the beginning of the 20th century.  The reason--blacks and whites were forming bi-racial labor unions in the coal mines, and blacks, who had the vote, were beginning to get a voice.  The reaction?  Whites, who controlled the government, began to pass laws disenfranchising blacks and requiring complete economic and social separation.
4.  In Birmingham courts in the 19th and early 20th centuries they used 2 Bibles--one for white men to be sworn in on and one for blacks.
5. Our second speaker today, Professor Corley, made reference to the book Slavery By Another Name.(see earlier post).  He said that as he was reading about one of the black men who was arrested and sold into industrial slavery got his interest because his family still lives in the town where this happened. This man was going to visit his sick wife.  He owned his own small patch of cotton, so the last thing he was seeking was a confrontation with the law. As he began asking his relatives about this incident, he discovered that the sheriff (Robert Franklin) who arrested this lone black man and sold him to John Pace, one of the most evil of post war slaveholders, was none other than his great-grandfather. I don't know how I would handle a piece of information like that.

Below are some photos from our trip today:
The first three are Rickwood Field--the oldest baseball stadium in the US.  It housed two teams by 1910--The Birmingham Barons and the Birmingham Black Barons.  Seating was segregated based on which team was playing.

Downtown Birmingham from Vulcan Park

Sloss Iron Works--historic site--one of the factories that was built on industrial slavery.

Statue of Vulcan in Vulcan Park--largest cast iron statue in the world.  Why Vulcan?  Check out who he is in mythology?  The spear tip he is holding--made of steel, as Birmingham envisioned its future as the new steel city.