Southern flavor - Spotlight Online

14-21_US_ATK_30.4_VZ 05.05.14 08:34 Seite 14
TRAVEL | United States
Southernf lavor
On the Alabama River:
the Harriott II riverboat sails
from Montgomery
14
Spotlight 6|14
Fotos: F1online; J. Earwaker; Getty Images; laif
JULIAN EARWAKER findet die Vielfalt des
Südens bezaubernd, die von altmodischem
Charme, leckerem Essen und Country Music
bis zu Raumfahrttechnologie und urbanem
Schick reicht.
14-21_US_ATK_30.4_VZ 07.05.14 08:20 Seite 15
Bourbon tasting
in Bardstown,
Kentucky
A
t ten o’clock in the morning, it’s already a humid 30 ºC. The water
shines in the sunlight. Dragonflies dance in the air. The horn of a freight
train sounds in the distance. My journey to the American South starts
here, on the banks of the Alabama River. Centuries ago, Native Americans,
amongst them the Alibamu, settled here. The modern city of Montgomery,
the Alabama state capital, was founded in 1819 on the back of the cotton trade.
Riverboats such as the Harriott II — offering river tours today — moved the
cotton to the Gulf port of Mobile and onwards to Britain and Europe.
The capitol building in Montgomery is elegant and beautifully proportioned. Nearby is the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church and Parsonage, where Martin Luther King, Jr., first worked from 1954–60. Shirley
Cherry, a former schoolteacher, takes me around. She tells me that King loved
jazz. “Everybody is significant on God’s keyboard,” she says with a smile.
When King arrived here, Alabama, like many other Southern states, had
“Jim Crow” laws. But the practice of racial segregation was about to change.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old black woman, refused to
give up her seat in a bus to a white man. Her arrest led to a bus boycott lasting
381 days and a decision from the highest court in the land that the segregation
laws were unconstitutional. “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat
because I was tired,” Parks said later. “But that isn’t true. No, the only tired I
was, was tired of giving in.” I learn more about the “mother of the civil rights
movement” at the Rosa Parks Library and Museum downtown. Outside, a sign
marks the bus stop where her courage changed the course of history.
about to: be ~ [E(baUt tE]
bank [bÄNk]
civil rights movement [)sIv&l (raIts )mu:vmEnt]
dragonfly [(drÄgEnflaI]
freight train [(freIt treIn]
give in [gIv (In]
horn [hO:rn]
humid [(hju:mId]
onwards [(A:nw&rdz]
parsonage [(pA:rsEnIdZ]
provisions [prE(vIZ&nz]
rest room [(rest ru:m] N. Am.
im Begriff sein zu
hier: Ufer
Bürgerrechtsbewegung
Libelle
Güterzug
nachgeben
Signalhorn
feuchtwarm, schwül
vorwärts, weiter
Pfarrhaus
Bestimmungen
(öffentliche) Toilette
The Junkyard
Art Museum in
Louisville, Kentucky
A CLOSER LOOK
“Jim Crow” laws were racial segregation
laws made in the United States between
1876 and 1965. The laws established segregation and discrimination in every aspect of life: restaurants and public rest rooms, social functions, jobs,
transportation, education, banking, and finance. The
“separate-but-equal” provisions for African Americans
were, however, not as good as those provided for
whites. The term Jim Crow was a negative expression meaning “Negro,” and is said to have come
from song and dance caricatures of blacks, as pictured here.
King Memorial Baptist
Church, Montgomery
Civil Rights Memorial,
Montgomery
14-21_US_ATK_30.4_VZ 05.05.14 08:51 Seite 16
TRAVEL | United States
The next morning, I’m driving north to
Birmingham, the largest city in Alabama. The
hot highway takes me past lakes and dams and
roadside signs for fast food and truck stops.
Birmingham has a strong connection to its
English past, and its history of iron ore and
coal mirrors that of the British city for which
it was named. “Industrialists dreamed it, but
blacks built the city,” explains Vickie Ashford
of Birmingham’s tourism authority as she leads A statue of Martin Luther King and the 16th St. Baptist Church, Birmingham
me into the Civil Rights Institute. Here, the story of the
maps of the area around the mussel beds. People come here
struggle for equality is powerfully told in a series of galto make music. It’s a tradition that dates back to the Native
leries. During the civil rights campaign, there were so
Americans — who called the Tennessee the “singing river”
many bombings of black churches and homes that the city
— as well as the songs of plantation slaves. W. C. Handy,
became known as “Bombingham.” Outside, I walk over
born in the nearby city of Florence in 1873, was famous
to a new sculpture across from the Sixteenth Street Baptist
as the “Father of the Blues.” In the 1960s and 70s, music
Church: It reminds people today of the four black girls
innovator Rick Hall produced hits at his FAME (Florence
killed here in September 1963 in a racist bomb attack.
Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios by artists such as
They had been preparing for church.
Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. The Rolling Stones,
Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan have visited this place, all
One-time steel city:
looking for the rare quality that makes a hit record.
Birmingham, Alabama
There’s always music at Champy’s, a popular restaurant
serving fried chicken, corn-bread fritters, and local catfish.
I ask the owner, Wade Baker, for the secret of his fried
chicken. “It’s got to be hand breaded and cooked fresh,
using clean, clear frying oil so that it’s crisp outside, but
moist inside,” he says.
Before I leave, I’m taken to see a “water show,” where
river fountains dance to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s classic rock anthem “Sweet Home Alabama” — a song that famously references the Muscle Shoals musicians.
bread [bred]
catfish [(kÄtfIS]
corn-bread fritter
[)kO:rn bred (frIt&r]
crisp [krIsp]
food stamp [(fu:d stÄmp] US
fountain [(faUnt&n]
iron ore [(aI&rn O:r]
moist [mOIst]
mussel bed [(mVs&l bed]
plantation [plÄn(teIS&n]
Soon, I’m on the road again, passing open fields, roadside mailboxes with their mouths open, and old farm
trucks. This is the Bible Belt, with a church on every corner, sometimes two side by side. Alabama was recently
named the second most religious state in the country. It’s
also one of the poorest. More than 914,000 Alabamans
are dependent upon food stamps for their daily bread.
That’s around a fifth of the population.
On the banks of the Tennessee River lies the sleepy settlement of Muscle Shoals. The strange name originates
from a spelling error by an early cartographer making
Bibelgürtel (ausgeprägt protestantische Region im Süden der USA)
hier: panieren
Seewolf
in Teig frittiertes Stück Maisbrot
knusprig
Essensmarke
Fontäne, Springbrunnen
Eisenerz
hier: saftig
Muschelbank
Plantage
Home-style decor at Champy’s restaurant in Muscle Shoals
Fotos: Alabama Tourism; J. Earwaker; Getty Images; laif
Bible Belt [(baIb&l belt] US