Aug 7, 2018 – Sweet Home Alabama

The historical paradox was not lost on us as we read with interest the story of Horace King written on a museum placard displayed three steps away from a giant photo of George Wallace. We were in Alabama, a state we have mostly avoided or at least failed to conjure a good reason to visit – until we began traveling with an RV.

Due to its location, Alabama was necessarily our first state out of Florida. With the comforts of home, we did more than just pass through the state, we spent some quality time there. And that’s how something unexpected happened to us, something that would profoundly affect how we traveled from this point on– we got educated.

Our education began in Eufaula, a once thriving river town that up until now was unknown to us. Within Alabama’s southern reaches, Eufaula is deep in cotton country and once had a great advantage from its location on the Chattahoochee River. The charming little town has a rich antebellum history that is still on display with several Nationally Registered Historic Buildings.

Reach into the Eufaula’s past and you’ll get stories of racial violence and segregation – a secessionist vigilante committee to drive abolitionists out, the final battle of the Civil War, violent voter suppression by the White League, and a school that stopped social events like the prom when forced to be integrated. But somewhere among all that is another story that we learned about at the Shorter Mansion Museum.

The story is about Horace King, born a slave in 1807. A rare event for its time, King became a business partner with his owner who built bridges (including the one over the Chattahoochee in Eufaula), warehouses and courthouses.

Over time, King developed his own career as an architect, engineer and bridge builder (as well as serving two terms as a congressman) and rose to prominence. To this day, King’s work is considered superior workmanship and can be seen all through Alabama and other states.

The next display was a tribute to Governor George Wallace. Nowhere among the list of positive contributions Wallace made to the state of Alabama will you read the words from his 1963 inaugural speech – “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

I wonder if Wallace ever gave thought to Horace King when he walked the cantilever spiral staircases in Alabama’s State Capitol – the same stairs designed by Horace King.

A few days later in Guntersville near the Tennessee border, another historical irony came to our attention This time, the topic was the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and how it changed the south. Created in 1933 as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, one of the goals of TVA was to bring electricity to the rural south – and to tame its rivers.

From one display after another, a recorded narration described the bold construction of 16 dams and a steam plant. The outcome from the TVA was that for the first time, vast areas of the south had access to electricity. But there is another story here – that of Jim and Mattie Randolph and their seven children, one cow, one pig and sixty chickens.

The Randolphs were one of thousands of families forced out of their home and relocated. Mattie “plain stubborn’ Randolph refused to move her family to the bitter end. The TVA personnel could not understand why the family wished to remain in their squalid home rather than live in better conditions somewhere else. The answer to that is simple – the Randolphs had no understanding of the TVA. Their world did not reach beyond their 14 acres, which is all they knew and cared about.

The TVA was given the power to remove families from their homes and relocate them. Communities were destroyed, many ending up at the bottom of a reservoir. The point is driven home through the museum’s narration – all this for the greater good. But maybe it was not so good for Mattie Randolph.

I must admit when I think of Alabama, segregation and intolerance comes to mind. But this may not be a fair assessment as we learn more about it. Alabama is a complicated state of paradoxes and ironies. It once thrived on cotton fields where black slaves worked and died, but it is also the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. Someone once wrote that Alabama is proud of its divisive past, as well as its reputation for being at the forefront of equality.

We began to think that there is more to our RV travels than simply “seeing the country”. What really happened in Alabama is that it challenged our preconceived notions and biases, and no matter where we go, there is a story waiting to do the same. I can liken our RV travels to reading a book of stories that somehow intertwine into a larger-than-life story – the American Story as told by those that lived it – like Horace King and Mattie Randolph.