It was a brisk autumnal morning Friday October 26th when we set off with two visiting friends from Germany and Jamaica on our odyssey to the shrines of the Civil Rights era in Alabama, snaking through the streets of Atlanta, a pregnant metropolis about to give birth to a new character. Our escape hatch to the I-85 Highway South was aptly named Freedom Parkway which straddles the verdant gardens of Nobel Laureate President Jimmy Carter Center. It was a day of great anticipation … more like Great Expectations.

The gaps would in both friends’ minds would be filled after their sojourn in the land replete with a sordid acts of inhumanity that have recently abated, but still remains divided along racial lines, albeit voluntary these days.

A debate ensued on how best to organize our day. Time was of the essence and we needed to use every minute expeditiously. Barbara, who hails from the region, gave structure to the travel plan and we had our first respite at a funky petrol station about five miles from Tuskegee. As we alighted from our decrepit “rest rooms” – a euphemism for “toilet” – a hirsute white chap in overalls lurked nearby, reminding us of an unsavory historical local color.

With pangs of hunger we sped off like winged steed stopping just outside Montgomery at Cracker Barrel for a 11 o’clock breakfast, pancakes, syrup, bacon, eggs, dirty socks-type coffee, hot chocolate, and a chirpy and chubby black waitress who seemed to have some difficulty deciphering our accents, while bemused Barbara looked on. Our meal was akin to those that President Clinton used to ingest before his triple by-pass surgery. Sweet tea was yet to come later in the trip.

Skirting Montgomery on our way to Selma, we passed by Dannelly Field (near the airport), Alabama National Guard Headquarters, where the current US President is said to have done his military service, although local inhabitants could not recall, save a dental record. Suffice it to say, this site was merely incidental. Our mission was to get a firm grip on the Civil Rights experience. Our guests were eager to learn more. They were inquisitive and perceptive.

After crossing the flat lands between Montgomery and Selma we stopped at the Civil Rights Memorial on the lip of the renowned Edmund Pettus Bridge where the 1965 Voting Rights marchers were confronted by hostile police on what is referred to as “Bloody Sunday”. Nobel Laureate John Hume of Northern Ireland told us when lived in Dublin that this incident and protesters’ resolve inspired Catholics seeking equal rights in Belfast.

Driving in Selma we came across the two churches where Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton first addressed congregations in March, which we had attended. Curiously, it was the same place where we witnessed the crowd abandon both senators and rushed instead to see and touch President Clinton when he arrived.

Selma seems like a city in decay although there was some evidence of home owners in the relatively affluent parts trying to renovate their dwellings near to the grand house where author F. Scott Fitzgerald and wife Zelda had big parties when they lived in Montgomery. The Sturdivant ante bellum mansion remained intact and imposing. The Voters Rights Museum was modest but interesting, and had windows overlooking the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The cemetery was expansive and the tombs, including one of a US Vice President, were sturdy, shrouded in some places by Spanish moss.

Old Cloverdale is our favorite neighborhood in Montgomery. It has wonderful historical homes and a magnificent Methodist Church in the center. It reminds one of a small town in England. We arrived there to share a glass of wine at the residence of local friends. In typical Southern fashion, they were gracious and talkative.

Earlier, we had visited the Rosa Parks Museum, constructed by Troy State University at the location where this NAACP civil rights activist and seamstress got on the bus in 1995 thereby triggering the Civil Rights movement. On Dexter Avenue, the main street, we stopped at Martin Luther King’s Church, the court house, Capitol building, Governors George and Lurline Wallace building, and passed by the famous Southern Poverty Law Center, headed by the renowned civil rights lawyer Morris Dees. We were also able to get a glimpse of Maxwell Air Force Base where the Air War College is situated, and where we resided as diplomatic advisors and Earle as faculty member for three years far from the Washington DC foreign and security policy wonks.

Night fell suddenly. Nevertheless we were determined to visit Tuskegee. And so we did. We toured the town and saw the location where Barbara’s friend, Sammy Younge was killed by racists while protesting discrimination, the Veterans Administration Hospital on the grounds where Barbara and her sister grew up, Booker T. Washington’s House, and Tuskegee Institute, where Booker T’s statue “Unveiling the Negro” is located, and the buildings where the syphilis experiment was conducted on blacks only a few decades ago. We ended up having dinner on campus at the Kellogg Center and hotel. It was enjoyable listening to funky rhythm and blues oldies, eating fried chicken and catfish, and finally drinking sweet tea.

Satisfied with our day’s sojourn, we scampered back to Atlanta arriving home at 1 am. Our friends’ intellectual curiosity was quenched. We were reminded of this historical and extant reality.

And so it was, yet another pilgrimage into the not-too-distant past, that still remains so much a part of the present – an existence of racial accommodation with fused and distinct mores – despite arguments to the contrary.

Barbara and Earle Scarlett

US diplomats (retired)