Birmingham is an industrial city and, from an olfactory standpoint, it still has a bad smell. The murder of the four little girls in church and the behavior of Bull Connor, the dogs and fire hoses set on children, gave it a bad emotional smell in my consciousness. The city. however, is doing an amazing job of cleansing in the way it commemorates the movement era. The protesting children are painted as freedom fighters and Bull Connor is clearly labeled "the bad guy". The route from Ingram park to downtown stores where marchers picketed and sat in at lunch counters is lined with visually striking and information rich markers which detail the history of Operation C (for confrontation)in Birmingham. It was on this route that I first encountered the concept of the civil rights movement as a second American revolution, one which allowed the fuller implementation of the ideals for which the first revolution was fought.
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