By Kym Klass
February 8, 2010
If Alabama was ground zero for the civil rights movement, then
Montgomery was ground zero for Alabama, author Frye Gaillard told an
audience at the Rosa Parks Library Auditorium on Sunday.
There to discuss his new book, "Alabama's Civil Rights Trail: An
Illustrated Guide to the Cradle of Freedom" (The University of
Alabama Press, $24.95), Gaillard said the civil rights story in
Montgomery has many layers.
From the slave market to the Emancipation Day plaque to the spot
where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, Montgomery,
he said, is a prime example of how Alabama has done "a good job
preserving the history."
Gaillard, a native of Mobile, is on a weeklong tour with his book.
On Tuesday, he visits Selma; on Wednesday, he will be in Tuscaloosa,
and on Thursday, Birmingham.
"We have a lot to celebrate in Alabama," Gaillard said. "A lot of
people to thank."
In his book, the story of the civil rights movement in Alabama is
told city by city, region by region, and town by town, with entries
on Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma, Tuscaloosa, Tuskegee and Mobile, as
well as chapters on the Black Belt and the Alabama hill country.
There are more than 80 sites mentioned in the book -- from southern
Mobile County to the Tennessee border.
Smaller but important locales such as Greensboro, Monroeville and
Scottsboro are included, as are more obscure sites like Hale County's
Safe House Black History Museum and the birthplace of the Black
Panther Party in Lowndes County, according to the University of
Alabama Press, which published the book.
"In the three minutes I've spent with this book, I'm delighted with
what I see," said Lee Sentell, the state's tourism director. "This
book will serve as a guidebook of each event, and each location. It
is an excellent way of helping to explain Alabama's part in the civil
rights movement."
No other state has embraced and preserved its civil rights history
more thoroughly than Alabama, and "Alabama's Civil Rights Trail"
tells of Alabama's great civil rights events, as well as its
lesser-known moments, in a compact and accessible narrative, paired
with a practical guide to Alabama's preserved civil rights sites and
monuments, according to the publisher.
Bernard Lafayette, a former Freedom Rider, told the group Sunday how
disturbed he has been that there is a gap in generations who
understand -- or even know about -- the civil rights movement.
"We've got to quadruple our efforts in educating," he said. "I'm
going to double my efforts to expose them to this kind of thing ...
because it's within their reach."
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