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Alabama
History suffuses Alabama, a description that could be true of many states. But there are few places where the perception of said history is so emotionally fraught. The Mississippian Native American culture built great mound cities here, and Mobile is dotted with Franco-Caribbean architecture. But for many, the word Alabama is synonymous with the American Civil Rights movement.
Perhaps such a struggle, and all of the nobility and desperation it entailed, was bound for a state like this, with its Gothic plantations, hardscrabble farmland and fiercely local sense of place. From the smallest hunting town to river-bound cities, Alabama is a place all its own, and its character is hard to forget. Some visitors have a hard time looking beyond the state's past, but the troubling elements of that narrative are tied up in a passion that constantly manifests in Alabama's arts, food and culture.
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Top attractions
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Alabama.
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Sloss Furnaces
The Sloss Furnaces constitutes one of Birmingham's can't-miss sites. From 1882 to 1971, this was a pig iron–producing blast furnace and a cornerstone of Birmingham's economy. Today, instead of a wasteland it's a National Historic Landmark, a red mass of steel and girders rusted into a Gothic monument to American industry. Quiet pathways pass cobwebbed workshops and production lines that form a photographer's dream playground. A small museum on site explores the furnaces' history.
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
A maze of moving audio, video and photography exhibits tell the story of racial segregation and the Civil Rights movement, with a focus on activities in and around Birmingham. There's an extensive exhibit on the 16th Street Baptist Church (located across the street), which was bombed in 1963; it's the beginning of the city's Civil Rights Memorial Trail.
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Edmund Pettus Bridge
Few sites are as iconic to the American Civil Rights movement as the Pettus Bridge. On March 7, 1965, a crowd prepared to march to Montgomery to demonstrate against the murder of a local black activist by police during a demonstration for voting rights. As those activists gathered into a crowd, the news cameras of the media were trained on the bridge and a line of state troopers and their dogs, who proceeded to lay into the nonviolent marchers. When the scene was broadcast on national television later that night, it marked one of the first times anyone outside the South had witnessed the violent response to non-violent protests. Booted policemen used night sticks and attack dogs on peaceful marchers while whites waving Confederate flags jeered from the sidelines. Shock and outrage was widespread, and support for the movement grew. Martin Luther King arrived swiftly to Selma and after another aborted attempt due to the threat of violence, helped lead what became 8000 people on a four-day, 54-mile march to Montgomery, culminating with a classic speech on the capitol steps. Soon after, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Today the bridge is just that – a bridge over the Alabama River used primarily for vehicular traffic. Check out the local NPS sites for more history and interpretation.
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Rosenbaum House
Almost every building buff has heard of Taliesin, and even those with no interest in architecture have seen pictures of Fallingwater. But you have to be dedicated to Frank Lloyd Wright's work to know about Florence's Rosenbaum House, even though said structure is an almost perfect example of Wright's signature 'Usonian' architectural style. Long, clean lines, clever use of geometry, and a constant focus on integrating nature into the lived habitat characterize this absolute treasure of American architecture.
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Vulcan Park
Imagine Christ the Redeemer in Rio, but made of iron and depicting a beefcake Roman god of metalworking. Vulcan is visible from all over the city – this is the world's largest cast-iron statue – and the park he resides in offers fantastic views, along with an observation tower. A small on-site museum explores Birmingham history.
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Birmingham Museum of Art
This fine museum boasts an impressive collection, especially given Birmingham's status as a mid-sized city. Inside, you'll find works from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Don't miss pieces by Rodin, Botero and Dalí in the sculpture garden.
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Kelly Ingram Park
When Bull Conner was the sheriff, civil rights activists, led by Dr King, embarked on a desegregation campaign downtown. Their strategy was to flood the city jails with students, many of them high-school students who became known as ‘foot soldiers’ within the movement. After weeks of restraint, police set attack dogs upon the kids and local firemen blasted them with water cannons in Kelly Ingram Park, and on the city streets where they were pinned against walls. Today the park forms a seminal stop in the Birmingham Civil Rights Memorial Trail, and – perhaps ironically, perhaps appropriately given its social justice background – serves as a gathering space for the local homeless and indigent community. The park's main draw is a series of powerful sculptures, each depicting a moment in the Civil Rights struggle. In one space, the path becomes a gauntlet of snarling police dogs, while further down the path, a water cannon is aimed at park visitors.
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16th Street Baptist Church
This church became a gathering place for organizational meetings and a launchpad for protests in Birmingham in the 1950s and ’60s. During a massive desegregation campaign directed at downtown merchants in 1963, Ku Klux Klan members bombed the church during Sunday school, killing four little girls. Today the rebuilt church is a memorial and house of worship (services 11am Sunday).
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Railroad Park
Credit where it's due: Birmingham's Railroad Park, which constitutes some 19 acres of downtown real estate, is a stroke of planning brilliance. As urban green lungs go, this park, and its miles of pathways, public art and pretty lighting, is fantastic. A good place to access the park is on 1st Ave South, between 14th and 18th St South.
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