Leaving Birmingham, heading to Montgomery
In preparing for our trip to Montgomery we attended the 10:45am service at the historic 16th Street Baptist Church.
The audience, service, signing, the band and, of course, the Preacher were terrific.
Many in our group are not Baptist and when we talked about the service on the bus it became apparent this was the case.
Since sociology is about observation, the two hour service was incredible.
The sermon was about “not quitting.” It started very low key, the preacher talked about Paul, and ended talking about the sins of homosexuality, poverty, unhealthy marriages and not skipping church for Memorial Day BBQ.
Because of some very heavy eating for the last two days, we decided to pick up food and simply eat in. Ronnie stopped at Wal*Mart (which caused some concern for those who do not shop at Wal*Mart).
The evening at the Embassy Suites was LOUD (mostly our students).
Today (Memorial Day) we dive into some demographics of Birmingham and Montgomery. We will examine contemporary issues related to poverty, access to health care, schooling in todays society in these important cities.
This is where we part from the history perspective/discipline. The students will have assignments that they will then discuss & post to the WIKI. We want our students to engage history but move forward to what is happening today and then ask questions about “SOCIAL PROGRESS.”
We are off to visit the Selma to Montgomery Trail and afterwards we will have a BBQ, a reflection to remember the troops and get to work on the assignments.
ES