The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in the Alabama city is a National Historic Landmark. Going to a service there on Memorial Day weekend was right and good.
Great one, Chuck. One of the girls killed in the Birmingham bombing, Denise McNair, was a childhood friend of former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, whose father was a Presbyterian pastor in Birmingham. Denise McNair's father, Christopher McNair, was invited by Anna Mae Weems to speak at a memorial service here in Waterloo at Grant Elementary School a month after the bombing in 1963. Anna Mae was active with the United Packinghouse Workers of America local at the Rath Packing Co., The union supported the Sourthern Christian Leadership Conference. I did this column about it last fall: https://patkinney.substack.com/p/two-waterloo-classmates-caused-good
And you probably heard that Birmingham's Rickwood Field, where the Birmingham Black Barons of the old Negro National League played when Willie Mays was on the team, is the site of this year's Field of Dreams game while the site in Dyersville is under construction.
Hi Pat, thanks for the comment and the long-ago & interesting connection of the United Packinghouse Workers of America local in Waterloo to the good people of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Also, interesting that as you were writing me about Rickwood Field in Birmingham, I'm here in Des Moines wearing a Rickwood Field souvenir shirt I bought at that classic field a year ago. When we were in Birmingham for the 2023 SEC basement tournament, which my VandyBoys won, we toured Rickwood Field. And I wrote this column about it then: https://chuckoffenburger.substack.com/p/at-americas-oldest-baseball-park. It was after that column was published that Major League Baseball announced that the 2024 Field of Dreams game would be moved to Rickwood Field. Word last week in Birmingham is that the renovation work at Rickwood is now nearing completion, in preparation for the June 20 MLB game to be played there.
This column is especially touching to me because of my love for visiting places of worship plus the knowledge of the church’s tumultuous history. How I would also have been inspired by worshipping at this church and hearing the almost-musical sounds of alliteration in the outstanding sermon. I am so glad you had the chance to be there and that you wrote so beautifully about your visit. Your photographer is a prize, too, in every wqy!
Chuck knows Iowa as well as any living Iowan does — maybe any Iowan ever, but his reach and curiosity and friend and source base are not limited to our state.
Thank you for this powerful column and the reawakening it brings to our attention. I really appreciated the breadth of the column.
Great one, Chuck. One of the girls killed in the Birmingham bombing, Denise McNair, was a childhood friend of former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, whose father was a Presbyterian pastor in Birmingham. Denise McNair's father, Christopher McNair, was invited by Anna Mae Weems to speak at a memorial service here in Waterloo at Grant Elementary School a month after the bombing in 1963. Anna Mae was active with the United Packinghouse Workers of America local at the Rath Packing Co., The union supported the Sourthern Christian Leadership Conference. I did this column about it last fall: https://patkinney.substack.com/p/two-waterloo-classmates-caused-good
And you probably heard that Birmingham's Rickwood Field, where the Birmingham Black Barons of the old Negro National League played when Willie Mays was on the team, is the site of this year's Field of Dreams game while the site in Dyersville is under construction.
Hi Pat, thanks for the comment and the long-ago & interesting connection of the United Packinghouse Workers of America local in Waterloo to the good people of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Also, interesting that as you were writing me about Rickwood Field in Birmingham, I'm here in Des Moines wearing a Rickwood Field souvenir shirt I bought at that classic field a year ago. When we were in Birmingham for the 2023 SEC basement tournament, which my VandyBoys won, we toured Rickwood Field. And I wrote this column about it then: https://chuckoffenburger.substack.com/p/at-americas-oldest-baseball-park. It was after that column was published that Major League Baseball announced that the 2024 Field of Dreams game would be moved to Rickwood Field. Word last week in Birmingham is that the renovation work at Rickwood is now nearing completion, in preparation for the June 20 MLB game to be played there.
This column is especially touching to me because of my love for visiting places of worship plus the knowledge of the church’s tumultuous history. How I would also have been inspired by worshipping at this church and hearing the almost-musical sounds of alliteration in the outstanding sermon. I am so glad you had the chance to be there and that you wrote so beautifully about your visit. Your photographer is a prize, too, in every wqy!
Chuck knows Iowa as well as any living Iowan does — maybe any Iowan ever, but his reach and curiosity and friend and source base are not limited to our state.
This impeccable column is why Chuck Offenburger is an inspiration to generations of journalists.
What an amazing experience ❤