Selma Alabama and Vicksburg Mississippi: historical southern experiences.

We stopped in Selma, Alabama for the night; we did not quite make it to Demopolis, our intended destination. First thing in the morning we visited the National Voting Rights Museum & Institute. What a moving place that was, their motto is the “hands that picked cotton…. can pick presidents”. I had seen it mentioned in one of our travel books and am so glad we stopped to see it. The location is amazing: it is only about 200 yards from the Edmund Pettius Bridge which was the scene of “Bloody Sunday” the beginning of the Selma to Montgomery March that pushed the civil rights issues around voting rights and human dignity in 1965. Wow, what powerful displays they had, reminded us of those horrific times and that we still have a long way to go to insure equality.
We then completed our drive through Alabama and into Mississippi. We stopped in Vicksburg for 2 nights. We were able to stay at the local Elks Lodge at a very reasonable price, with hook-ups, and very friendly folks to visit with. The National Military Park was only a couple of miles away. We bought a wonderful audio CD/book to guide us on the 16 mile auto tour. An incredible story unfolded for us as we drove for over 3 hours, seeing the landscape of the 47 day siege of the Civil War. In 1862 Gen. Ulysses Grant was ordered by President Abraham Lincoln to clear Mississippi of the 50,000 Confederates led by Lt. Gen John C. Pemberton. Despite many victories on the Confederate side, it was not meant to be; on July 4th 1863 Vicksburg was officially surrendered to the Union. This along with victories at Gettysburg and Port Hudson marked the turning point of the Civil War. One of the more interesting sights was the recovered U.S.S. Ciaro, an iron clad river gunboat.
After so much education and history we went downtown in the afternoon and enjoyed walking along the old down town area and the waterfront. Because the “Big Muddy” is in a flooding condition (due to the severe winters up north and the thawing that is happening and sending more water than usual down this way) there was a lot of activity down there; bulldozers, trucks and a lot reinforcement building materials were present. The river is supposed to increase by at least 10 more feet in the Vicksburg area in the next 2 weeks. This is the highest it has been since 1923. The good news, is that the people know it is coming, the bad news is there is not much that can be done for much of the area. There of course was a lot of discussion wherever we went about the flood and what was going to happen. We ate dinner, at a riverside restaurant, what an amazing amount of water was flowing down the river and much more to come.
Westward ho: We left Mississippi, made a relatively quick trip through Louisiana and on the Texas.