September 10, 2017

To be able to take my children to places they’ve read about in school books is such a privilege that I greatly appreciate. I am blessed to have that opportunity and I don’t take it for granted. Montgomery, AL is not far from my home town of Acworth, GA but I have never visited. When the girls first started learning about civil rights in school I should have traveled here to show them the rich history. But weekend life was always filled with   sporting events, chores, projects and everything you can’t fit in during the week. Now we have time to do all the things we couldn’t do with the traditional schedule we were used to.

If you ever get a chance to visit Montgomery, I’d suggest a Sunday. The museums are open but nothing else is so the town is empty. We were able to park for free and walk everywhere. The museums that charged money were giving discounts to the IRMA evacuees so that was a nice bonus as well.

We were able to stand in the very spot that Rosa Parks made history by refusing to give up her seat on the bus for white passengers, thus starting the bus boycott. The Rosa Parks Museum is part of Troy University and does a great job of explaining the history of the civil rights movement. They have a children’s wing but we didn’t have time to do both so we chose to do the normal side because I thought they were old enough for that tour. It was perfect. The girls were very engaged. They walked away with a new perspective of how cruel people were and can be.

Those of you that don’t recognize what the girls are holding, it’s ‘Flat Henry’. Chef Henry from Henry’s Louisiana Grill in Acworth, GA signed and gave a Flat Henry cardboard cut out of himself to the girls so they are traveling with Flat Henry through America. We post all those pictures on their Facebook page. He may occasionally find his way into some of the pictures we post on here as well. Mainly because I can’t remember to take two photos of each location- one with Henry and one without.

We headed over to the Civil Rights museum where outside was an amazing memorial by Maya Lin (the same artist that designed the Vietnam Veterans memorial in DC).

                 The girls taking notes from the engraved timeline located on the disc.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream” by Martin Luther King Jr. is the quote engraved on the larger wall.

                              Inside we all took a pledge and signed the wall of tolerance.

This is us on the capital steps. It’s a beautiful capital building.

It’s located on the Alabama River. We just so happened to stay at an RV park and our site was also on the Alabama River.

Notice in the picture of the mural behind the girls, it highlights the Alabama and Prairie River and a little campground spot in between (that’s where we stayed).

That’s me, at said campground, in my hammock over looking the Alabama River.

The day before we had visited the capture site of Jefferson Davis. Today we were able to visit the First White House of the Confederacy where he lived for 4 months in 1861. Love the connections we are making!