Birmingham, Alabama. Just the words make you think about freedom riders,
church bombings, civil rights marches and police dogs. This is a place
that can’t escape its history—especially the painful parts. Almost 50
years later after the tragedies and triumphs of the civil rights era,
Birmingham is still a community trying to put itself back together.
Some
have started trying to unearth the city’s past and face it. To do that,
people are looking beyond the civil rights era: From slavery to
vaudeville, and from Birmingham as a steel town to its post-industrial
future. Saturday at 4 on VPR, State of the Re:Union: Birmingham brings listeners into the courtrooms,
churches and backyards of Birmingham to answer the question borne out by
the lives of people here: Is Birmingham a monument to brutal
segregation, or one of the few American cities willing to take a hard
look at race?