On a “civil rights” tour of Alabama, many of the speakers resist making connections to the present, preferring to discuss the desegregation and voting rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s as a closed book, the way we explain Lincoln. Others see Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma as an important chapter in the continuing antiracism struggle. One speaker, who as a teenager was present at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church Sept. 15, 1963, the day a bomb killed four of her friends, was asked about "critical race theory," largely banned in Alabama. “They don't want us to talk about race,” she said, “but how else can we explain to our children what happened?”–Fletcher Farrar, editor
This article appears in Working for less than minimum wage.
