Gunter Hill Campground

We travelled to Montgomery Alabama, camping at Gunter Hill Campground. The Legacy Museum is built on the site of a former slave warehouse. It tells the story of blacks from enslavement to mass incarceration. It is quite an emotional experience as numerous stories are told via film, holograms, and placards.

Legacy Museum

Interesting findings:

·       In 1730 half the population of New York city had slaves.

·       Savannah, Georgia was the arrival port to half the transatlantic slave traffic.

·       Two million people died crossing the Atlantic to become slaves.

·       Congress abolished the Atlantic slave trade in 1808.

·       The domestic slave trade separated nearly half of all black families.

·       The Reconstruction period after the civil war offered a brief hope of equality for blacks.

·       Over eighty percent of black males registered to vote during reconstruction in Alabama.

·       But a series of supreme court decisions allowed state laws to ensure racial superiority for whites. 

·       Blacks could be arrested for vagrancy if they weren’t employed.

·       By 1898, 73 percent of Alabama’s state revenue came from convict leasing.

·       From 1877 to 1950 over 4400 lynchings of African Americans have been documented.

·       We read a newspaper headline about out a lynching to be held the next day. Ten thousand whites showed up to hang the man and shoot him with bullets until it ended when a bullet hit the rope.

·       In the 1960s through the nineties the Drug War and “tough on crime” bills built many new prisons that were filled by predominately black inmates.

·       The projection for the 21^st century is that 1/3 of black baby boys will go to jail or prison.

Of course, the story of Segregation was also told. It was here that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and was arrested. The Montgomery bus boycott led by the young new pastor, Dr. Martin Luther Jr, lasted for 11 months, one of the early civil rights protests. A sampling of the videos is available on youtube. 

Suspended tombstones - one for each county

We then went to the Peace and Justice Memorial with its suspended tombstones, one for every county where there is a documented lynching.

Each lynching

We finished our day with some Alabama barbecue at Dreamland BBQ to have some ribs. 

World War II Museum, New Orleans

 

We had an interesting trip to the World War II Museum, we had thunder and heavy rain, the streets started to flood and twice a passing truck doused our car with enough water that we were temporarily blinded. We spent over five hours at the museum seeing five main exhibits. 

Cook books and ration books

The first exhibit was about how civilian life changed prior to and during the war. We went from most people taking an isolationist stance with a slow move to supporting Great Britain against the Germans and Japanese. When Pearl Harbor attacked there was a quick change of heart and quick enlistment into the services. Soon industries changed their purposes to make tanks, ships, planes, and munitions. Goods were rationed, and people had new cookbooks based on what wasn’t rationed. 

Ships and Planes on D-Day

The second exhibit focused on D Day, the largest invasion in history. 11,000 aircraft, 6000 naval vessels and 2 million soldiers, sailors and airmen from 15 countries.  We went on to the 4D presentation beyond all boundaries which presented numerous stories about the war. 

Hopping island to island

The exhibit Road to Tokyo made us realize how close we were to losing the war with Japan. A few courageous actions and luck ended the domination of the Japanese Navy and allowed us to hop from island to island to allow our planes to attack Japan. Still based on the “die for the emperor rather than surrender” on Okinawa and the emperors refusal to surrender despite the death tolls in Japanese cities, made the choice of the A-bomb a logical choice for Truman. Finally, we went to the Road to Berlin. The many videos available in each of these exhibits made the day more interesting than reading a lot of placards.

Bombing Japan

New Orleans

 

We’re expecting rain this afternoon, so we parked near the National Jazz Museum and walked through the French Market to Jackson Square. The French Market was founded in 1791 along the banks of the Mississippi. At 10:30 AM the market was just opening since their lifeblood today is tourists. Lots of drinks, food, and souvenirs. We looked over Jackson Square with its statue of Andrew Jackson who defeated the British here, not knowing that the War of 1812 was already over. 

Jackson Square

The St Louis Cathedral is the backdrop to the square. It is the oldest cathedral in the US. 

St. Louis Cathedral

We stopped at the Café du Monde for the obligatory beignets and café au lait. (I had to sneeze when I breathed in the powdered sugar accidentally.) 

Beignets and Cafe au Lait

We headed back to the Jazz Museum. It had lots of artifacts from famous blues and jazz musicians, but we were disappointed that it didn’t have more recordings. We did enjoy those they had. We learned about the invention of the bass drum pedal in 1907, allowing for the creation of drum sets where one drummer could set the beat for all the musicians. The highlight of the museum was hearing other visitors making rhythm on a Congo drum.  We also learned about Louie Armstrong playing trumpet when he attended the school for Waifs. We left about 2:00 just as the rain began.

Wetlands Acadian Culture Center

 

Flat bottom boats designed for the wetland

Our timing problem came again today. We were supposed to visit the Oaklawn Manor, but it was temporarily closed (but it looks permanent). We went on to the Wetlands Acadian Culture Center. Run by the National Park Service, it just had a small museum and several interesting videos. I had hoped to do a boat tour of the wetlands, but none were scheduled for today. The video we watched focused on the Cajun culture through modern times, especially the music and the unique Cajon words, most borrowed from French.

We’re camping at St Bernards State Park, about 12 miles southeast of New Orleans. We passed ports and refineries to reach a forested countryside with signs: “Do not feed the alligators".  The campground is beautiful with great campsites – what a find!

Do not feed the Alligators!

Exploring the Acadia Region

 

Maison Oliver

We’ve been to the Acadia region of Louisiana before, so we’re planning to visit new sights. We started in St. Martinsville at Louisiana’s first state park, the Longfellow-Evangeline park, inspired by Longfellow’s poem. Here we visited the Maison Olivier built in 1815. An example of a raised Creole cottage. We went into town and had lunch under the Evangeline Oak, the meeting place of the two lovers in Longfellows story. 

Evangeline Oak

Then walked to St. Martinsville of Tours church. The town was built on church land and paid rent to the church.

St. Martin of Tours Church

In the afternoon, we visited the Rip Van Winkle Gardens. John Jefferson built his home here in 1870 atop a Salt dome. John Jefferson was an actor who played the part of Rip Van Winkle over 4500 times. The gardens were created in the 1950s by John Bayless. On November 20, 1980, a Texaco oil rig pierced the salt mine caverns underneath Lake Pigneur outside the gardens. The lake disappeared flooding the entire salt mine including the Bayless home.

Home in the Rip Van Winkle Gardens

Texarkana to Scott LA

 

We drove to Lafayette, Louisiana today. I had planned a stop at the Acadia Culture Center here, but it is temporarily closed (probably due to flooding. We arrived too late to visit the Vermillion village. So, we relaxed at the KOA in Scott, LA. It is a huge campground, but was only about 2/3rds full, probably due to all the rain in the forecast.

Talimena Scenic Drive

 

The Mountains of Talimena Drive

We started driving east to take the Talimena scenic drive through the Ouachita mountain range. On the way after stopping for gas, I noticed that the trailer had lost battery power. The gas station was next to an auto parts store. I asked the clerk if any repair shops were open, but it’s the start of the Memorial Day Weekend. He did have the battery clip I needed and a crimping tool for attaching it. After a couple of tries, the connection was made and we were on our way. The mountain range runs West to East and is 2000 feet above the surrounding land, the road goes up and down the top ridge, providing many beautiful views. We stopped that night at Clear Spring Campground near Texarkana’s, TX.

Clear Creek Campground