Main Street Now – Birmingham, Alabama (2024), Part 2
Earlier we shared our story from arriving in Birmingham through the close of the Opening Plenary on Day 1. This post will cover the time after the Opening Plenary on Monday and before leaving Tuesday afternoon.
A full day of programming was available Monday afternoon. I started by heading my way to the Shuttlesworth Screening. Despite being late, I was let in and got to catch the first 20 mins or so of the film and received a complementary lunch. Was truly inspiring to see and hear firsthand from Rev. Shuttlesworth who played such an important role in the Civil Rights Movement.
My own presentation on Mental Health of the Main Street Manager started at 3:30pm. So I headed to the Speaker Ready Room, conveniently located just around the corner from our session room. One of the nice surprises was seeing my friend Mary Means who dropped in and interacted with me and my co-presenters. As the founder of Main Street in the 1970s, she could not be kinder, humbler, and more supportive of people doing work in Main Street today. Mary’s love of Main Street and Main Streeters shone through.
Promptly at 3:30 we started before a standing room only crowd. Early on I explained the session was different because half would be presentations and the other half was an opportunity for audience members to participate. One of our goals also was to make people feel together with one another – so by the end of the session no one feels alone. Our learning objections were as follows:
- Prioritize Mental health of the Main Street manager and healthy habits to support mental health.
- Understand resources available to support mental health including Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- Advocate for yourself (or for your manager) within your organization and community.
Dr. Michelle Drapkin, Founder of the CBT Center in Highland Park, New Jersey was the first presenter. She did a meditation exercise called “Leaves on a Stream.” We put any intentions or thoughts in our mind on a leaf and let it flow down the stream. This freed participants up to be present for the presentation and discussions that followed. Dr. Drapkin is author of the new book Motivational Interviewing. She shared her thoughts about how to handle workplace stress.
Next up, Sandy Castor asked the question “Why are we so stressed out?” Then she shared her own powerful story as someone working in politics and also with a family.
Architect Marina Rubina described the relationship between people and places they lived. She asked whether there is something we can do as Main Street America to both help ourselves and help people we work with. She proceeded to share many examples, with several from Princeton, to show places that enhance mental health.
Finally, I had an opportunity to speak. We were over time by about 15 minutes when I started so I truncated my presentation significantly while conveying the key points. Once I completed my remarks we opened things up to the audience. What followed was an authentic and open conversation. Participants shared how they can’t go out for dinner in their own town because people walk up and complain during their meal. Panelists shared insights on how to handle this and other difficult situations people faced. By the end some of the participants were in tears. Conversations continued with panelists and participants well after we left the room. The session exceeded our wildest expectations.
Most people broke off into smaller groups for dinner. I was invited and went to a dinner with a small group, before reconvening with the panelists from my session at Southern Kitchen + Bar. After dinner I once again made my way back to the hotel on foot over a mile away. I got to see the rainbow bridge for the first time.
Back at the hotel it was already night. I looked out the window and felt total gratitude and appreciation for the journey that brought me here.
The next morning I made my way to the conference center one last time. Along the way I took in some of the public art and storefronts of downtown Birmingham by daylight.
One mural featured the Birmingham Pledge on a large multi-story wall. This and the illustration sent a powerful message about overcoming racial prejudice and treating everyone with dignity and respect.
Another storefront, for Dog Days, creatively used an exposed side wall made visible because of a surface parking lot where there probably had been a building long before. The mural attracted attention to the business which people could enter from the street.
They also had some public art that doubled as a photo wall with the hashtag #dogdaysofbham.
Despite it being hot and humid outside, there were nicely shaded spots like this one.
The public art at 216 Lofts added some visual interest to another exposed side wall. Given the close proximity to the Alabama Theater it reinforced this section of the downtown as being an arts district.
The Alabama Penny Savings Bank/Pythian Temple Building was constructed in 1913. Sixteenth Street Baptist Church pastor Rev. William R. Pettiford was the founder. He led Alabama’s first Black-owned bank and the second-largest Black bank in the country by 1907. Black architects and buildings constructed this building as a vibrant symbol of black enterprise in Birmingham. Financing from the bank helped to construct homes, churches, and businesses for thousands of residents who could not get financing elsewhere. The bank closed in 1915 and the building was repurposed for use by the Alabama Knights of Pythias fraternal organization. The Knights made this a social hub and officer center for black professionals. A.G. Gaston later bought the building to house some of his businesses.
The Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse with austere lines had some classical detail, namely in the colonnade with Ionic columns across the front.
Nearby the Alabama Power Company building had some artistic flourishes in the entrance portico and with a gilded statue surmounting the tiled roof.
More signs informed us that we were now on the March Route Walking Tour. We caught it midway on the path to City Hall. This station recounted how schoolchildren, at first a few, and then about 2,000, skipped school to protest. As youths poured out of the Sixteenth Street Baptist church, Police Commissioner “Bulll” Connor used harsh tactics to try to end the marches. Pressure hoses and police K-9 units with dogs were set loose while TV cameras captured it all. On May 3, 1963 few of the young protesters made it to City Hall. In a radio broadcast on June 11, 1963, President Kennedy wondered “We are confronted with whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.”
The next set of markers described how despite the marchers being attacked and pushed back, the images on national TV “shocked and sickened the nation.” This was the reaction that organizers had hoped for. Children kept marching, and police kept using their violent tactics. Thousands of children and those supporting them would be injured, arrested and jailed.
Another moment remembered was the Good Friday March. Martin Luther King, Jr., led the march during Holy Week to gather further support for demonstrations. Prior to this moment King had never disobeyed a judges orders. Bail amounts were raised to free jailed protestors. King’s peers knew he was the only person who could raise the additional bail money. On April 12, 1963, Reverends Fred. L Shuttlesworth, Ralph David Abernathy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led a march to City Hall. Abernathy and King were arrested along with 50 protesters, ranging in age from 15 to 81 years old. While in custody, King wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” This letter and his arrest catapulted King to global renown as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement.
In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
As more people got arrested, money poured in to bail them out. Over $200,000 was donated from throughout the country. Monday night mass meeting in churches brought the Black community together in support of the children and marches. Hundreds of more people were arrested and the jails overflowed.
One day on May 6, 1963, over 1,000 people were arrested. This cemented national recognition of a truly “people’s movement.”
The Greyhound bus station, built in 1950, was a stop for the 1961 Freedom riders. When a mob attacked and beat the Freedom Riders – there was a fear that this might stop the riders and the movement for Civil Rights itself. When reinforcements arrived at the Greyhound Station, “Bull” Connor ordered police to arrest and jail them, including John Lewis. Connor drove them to the Alabama-Tennessee state line himself and ordered them not to return. But they did. They continued their ride from Birmingham to Montgomery where another angry mob attacked them. Eventually they did prevail, leading to federal laws ending all racial segregation of public facilities involving interstate travel.
This mural at the Legal Services of Alabama cast Rev. Shuttlesworth as a modern day saint with the multi-colored halo around his head.
A station dedicated to Rev. Shuttlesworth described his start in ministry by enrollment in Cedar Grove Bible College, where he took classes at night and worked during the day. He later enrolled at Selma University in September 1947 to continue his training. Rev. Shuttlesworth was ordained into ministry at Corinthian Baptist on August 10, 1948.
Boutwell Auditorium factored prominently in the push for Civil Rights too. Built in 1924, it was one of the largest and most modern auditoriums in the South. In April 1956, Asa Carter led an attack on singer Nat King Cole who performed before a white audience. The auditorium itself became a target of “Project C” marchers. It was renamed in honor of Albert Boutwell who in April 1963 defeated “Bull” Connor in the mayoral race.
This view from the back of Boutwell Auditorium with large mosaic panels suspended on steel armature in the background, with a Brutalist fountain and walkway in the foreground. Here a somewhat awkward transition is made to City Walk BHAM, and beyond that the conference center where I had a few more sessions left to attend.
One plaque I ran across recognized DeJarvis Leonard for his work as East Central Region Engineer for the Alabama Department of Transportation. It stated: “Mr. Leonard provided leadership in every aspect of the project to reconstruct the Central Business District Bridges and provided the vision and inspiration that resulted in the completion of CityWalk BHAM.” The plaque continued, “The City of Birmingham is a better place because of Mr. Leonard’s care and concern, and we express our appreciation to him.” This was a good segue back to the conference.
At the Expo Hall I wandered around a bit and found the table for Yiftee. We worked with them to launch the Experience Princeton Digital Gift Card which has resulted in over $50,000 of sales.
The busiest booth by far was Oriana Solutions. Their secret – stickers. People flocked and spent an extended period of time there. Myself included.
One of the best sessions I attended was with the Institute of Justice. They announced release of a whitepaper concurrent with the session. One example from Birmingham showed the cost of fees related to opening a restaurant was $4,403 for 16 different fees. Nine agencies were involved and 15 forms needed. The total number of steps to open was 48. With this data understood and laid out this way, it is then possible to simplify processes to be more business friendly.
Another concept, the One-Stop Shop Score measured several criteria:
- Connecting city requirements with processes from other levels of government.
- Completing forms and registrations through the portal, not through each agency’s own website
- Covering all city requirements, not just requirements for getting a business license
- Providing a single log-in opportunity so entrepreneurs can organize information and track progress in one location
- Guiding entrepreneurs effectively through the process
We took a break from the conference to visit the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Inside was a plaque remembering young lives lost on September 15, 1963 when the church was bombed.
The church was quite spectacular once inside.
This Memorial Stained Glass window of Jesus the shepherd was dedicated to those who lost their lives as a result of the bombing.
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute across the street has a wonderful sense of arrival with the entrance beneath a copper clad dome. Once entering the dome one is directed by the volunteers to the theater. Since we only had an hour or so and wanted to see as much as possible, we dove right into the exhibits.
This photo of Rev. Shuttlesworth from 1963 captured the preaching which guided the Civil Rights movement. Other exhibits recounted the movement: “Beginning with individual acts of courage, a mass movement, hundreds of thousands strong, arose to confront the entrenched forces of segregation. Every step of the way was a new challenge, a new form of protest, asking America to live up to its credo, “with liberty and justice for all.””
Various exhibits illustrated how equal justice was not the lived experience of Black Americans. Many examples were provided from juries, to schools, to business.
This timeline effectively captured how changes in Alabama sometimes mirrored changes nationally.
Another exhibit to Rosa Parks recounted how in late 1955, she refused to give up her seat to a White man on a crowded Montgomery city bus. Her arrest became the basis for a mass boycott and court case that would change Alabama and the country. In her later years Rosa Parks lived in Detroit, Michigan, until her death on October 24, 2005.
The “Bus Ride to Freedom” section told the story of the Freedom Riders in some detail.
Photos and exhibits captured how segregation on interstate busses persisted in the south. On May 4, 1961, seven Balck and six White riders set out on a “Freedom ride” from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans. Despite often violent resistance, including in Birmingham, the Congress of Racial Equality and other groups continued rides throughout the summer.
One very powerful exhibit provided a reminder how riders were often met by violence.
This map showed the route that the riders travelled.
The next section, “Give Us the Vote” showed yet another area where discrimination persisted. Blacks who tried to register to vote often faced threats, harassment, and loss of their jobs and even their lives.
In “Birmingham, The World is Watching!” the story of the important role that the largest city in Alabama played, particularly from 1963 forward. Stories of how segregation was challenged on local buses and interstate bus, railroad, and airport terminals. In 1962, economic boycotts put pressure on local merchants. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was invited to join in mass direct action in Birmingham.
A jail cell provides a reminder of how MLK and thousands of others were imprisoned in their fight for equal rights.
The August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was the fulfillment of a lifetime dream for A. Philip Randolph. The SCLC, CORE, and SNCC were joined by the NAAC, National Urban League and two hundred other White, religious, and civic groups who endorsed the march. Over a quarter million people showed up from across the U.S. to march, representing all ages, races, religions, and face. Their diversity symbolized hope as well as unity.
While the march on Washington was still a recent memory, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed on September 15, 1963. The church served as the center of the Civil Rights Movement, hosting speakers, mass meetings, and as the starting point for marches and demonstrations.
The next section shared how “The Struggle Continues” from public safety, to employment, public works and justice. The ascent of the a Black Mayor of Birmingham was identified as a sign of progress. Richard Arrington, Jr., a former biology professor and academic administrator, was encouraged to run and won. His election was a sign of Black political progress. He took the oath of office on November 13, 1979. He served five consecutive terms creating a booming economy, a balanced city budget, and a record number of jobs.
The Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday legislation was signed into law November 2, 1983. President Ronald Regan signed the legislation establishing the holiday and gave the following words as he recounted the accomplishments of MLK and the Civil Rights Movement.
Now our nation has decided to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by setting aside a day each year to remember him and the just cause he stood for. We’ve made historic strides since Rosa Park refused to go to the back of the bus. As a democratic people, we can take pride in the knowledge that we Americans recognized a grave injustice and took action to correct it and we should remember that in far too many countries, people like Dr. King never had the opportunity to speak out, at all.
President Ronald Reagan
During the tenure of Mayor Arrington a Birmingham Civil Rights Insitute “to enlighten our pathways to the future by exploring our past and remembering the great personal sacrifices of those who sought ‘liberty and justice for all’ in our community and beyond.” The site of the Insitute was dedicated on September 15, 1988, on the 25th anniversary of the tragic deaths in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
As envisioned from the time of its founding, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is a living institution, one “which views the lessons of the past as crucial to understanding our heritage and defining our future. Its programs and services intend to promote research, provide information and encourage discussion on civil and human rights locally, nationally, and internationally.” This quote was attributed to Odessa Woolfolk, chair of the initial task force and President of the Board of Directors.
Having gone on this remarkable journey through the Civil Rights Movement, it was back to the conference for the final few hours before my flight.
I was pleased to see my colleague Austin Sims, recent recipient of the Great American Main Street Award the day before. She was kind enough to take a quick selfie with me.
Is It Time for a Fifth Point?
At the suggestion of Mary Means, I attended the session by Julie Fitzpatrick on “Is It Time for a Fifth Point?” Connectivity and relationships within communities were emphasized, as well as the need to address wellness and health from a holistic perspective. Well-being was seen as being tied to economic development. Main Street programs were identified as helping to address community needs and to create inclusive spaces.
Fitzpatrick started with the social determinants of health: education access and quality, health care and quality, neighborhood and built environment, social and community context, and economic stability. Then she emphasized how healthy places and healthy people are interconnected.
The “Community Capitals” framework showed how capital in all its forms – built, financial, political, social, human, cultural, and natural were all aspects of a community ecosystem. Another framework called eight pillars of wellness focused on physical, social, emotional, occupational, financial, spiritual, intellectual, and environmental.
Fitzpatrick then went on to describe work a “safe, clean & green” strategy she laid out all of the things to consider from nuisance properties, to graffiti, and planter programs. Also how disaster prevention and tool libraries were resources to promote greater resiliency.
Her presentation shifted to tactical intervention ideas organized according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow defined needs as follows:
- Self actualization: Seeks fulfillment of person potential, empathy to help beyond own personal needs
- Esteem: Seeks self-confidence, recognition, and achievement.
- Love and belonging: Seeks sense of connection and belonging, friendships, family, and intimacy
- Safety: Seeks security in finances, property, employment, resources, and health
- Physiological: food, shelter, reproduction.
The tactical interventions ranged from the mundane such as restrooms and handwashing (physiological need), to moveable seating, charging stations, and WiFi (esteem). An “Implementation Matrix” provided a clever way to make sure that all needs were being addressed.
Small Deal Initiative
Fittingly my conference experience closed out with a presentation by former Main Street America CEO Patrice Frey on the Small Deal Initiative which she is now heading up. The goal of the initiative is to grow space for small businesses, add housing supply, and reactivate downtowns and districts by increasing investment in small-scale real estate development projects, specifically those under $5M in project value. Further, the initiative seeks to prioritize investments in disinvested communities, especially communities of color and rural Main Streets.
Several reasons were provided for why small buildings are vital to revitalization:
- Character-rich, human-scaled, and fundamental to high-quality places and the sense of place.
- Adaptable to new economic uses; most significant assets in distressed rural/urban places
- Lack of built-out space barrier to new business formation, wealth creation, and housing.
- And, the signfiicant environmental cost to abandoning these places.
Obstacles to putting these small buildings back into use from a nationwide survey were unwilling or uncooperative owners (70%), difficulty of financing (45%), and lack of local developers (40%). Underlying these problems was that a lot of deals don’t pencil out and make economic sense for the investment required.
The “Macon Model” was highlighted. There a CDFI provides commercial real estate loans for acquisition, construction, and development, typically in subordinated debt. A developers academy and one-on-one coaching further helps with projects. Finally, the fund is capitalized through an endowment with participation from a local foundation and university that provided $10M. This fund has loaned $30M since 2012.
Borrowing from this model, similar small deals funds are looking at Program Related Investments from private foundations. PRIs are mission or social investments that foundations make to achieve their philanthropic goals. They are not part of the 5% distribution that foundations are required to make of their endowment each year for charitable purposes. Instead they are part of the 95% of cash, equities, bonds, and other types of securities that can generate investment income. Therefore it is in the interest of private foundations to be involved in making a “PRI-Like Investment” of charitable investments from their endowments.
Patrice shared more about her work on a pilot project in Alabama. Overall it was exciting to see the innovation happening around small projects within our Main Street America network. I was sure to thank Patrice for her many years of leadership as President and CEO of Main Street America too.
As I walked out to catch my Uber to the airport, I had a nice surprise seeing the directors of the New Jersey and South Carolina Main Street programs. We had a nice quick exchange before I took off.
Perhaps the most poignant moment of the day if not the conference was my Uber ride back to the airport. The driver was a social studies teacher from the local schools. We spoke about Birmingham, recent laws that restricted what could be taught or discussed particularly as it pertained to civil rights. Despite the very real challenges there was a hopefulness and optimism that shone through. I could think of no better way to spend my last few minutes in Birmingham with a better person to give the final word on what makes this such a special town – truly “America’s classroom.”