These are diary entries that I wrote throughout my ten-day Sojourn to the Past trip on February 14-23. Each entry is posted here two weeks after it was originally written, due to the provision that I didn’t have any computer or internet access during my trip. Be sure to check out my other Sojourn to the Past coverage. Enjoy.

Today was a special day that we spent doing some special things. It was shorter than usual to make up for the huge day that we had yesterday.

We started with a 9 AM wake-up call, which is extraordinarily late for Sojourn. After our breakfast, we started the day with a lesson on the Birmingham movement in 1963, a movement led large by children who were willing to fill up the jails to bring the city to its knees. It’ll probably go down as my favorite lesson of the trip, and it’s definitely one that I hope to be able to learn even more about.

After the lesson, we drove to Birmingham, and while we were driving, we had a short bus lesson on the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing on September 15th, 1963. We quickly checked in to our Birmingham hotel, and then drove to the studio of the McNair family. The McNairs were the family of one of the four little girls killed in the church bombing: Denise McNair (age 11).

At their studio, we watched the Spike Lee Documentary Four Little Girls, which profiled the girls and told the story of the bombing. After the movie finished, we had the opportunity to hear Mr. and Mrs. McNair speak and answer questions (and of course share great big hugs with everyone). Then, the McNairs actually made dinner for us–their surviving daughter is a professional chef and they made a great dinner of excellent tacos for us. (Yes, we just had tacos last night, but these were MUCH better.)

That pretty much was today in a nutshell. Tomorrow, though, we’ve got a very busy day coming…

Tags: Birmingham, bombing, children, Denise McNair, diaries, jail, McNair Family, movement, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Sojourn to the Past