Birmingham Airport Exhibit about Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

I was at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth Airport recently picking up my son Amos coming in from Philadelphia. Since I arrived early, I had time to examine the extensive exhibit on the civil rights icon Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth [18 March 1922-5 Oct 2011] located between the baggage claim areas 1-2 and 3-4. 

In the introduction to his Encyclopedia of Alabama entry on Shuttlesworth, Andrew Manis writes, "African American Baptist pastor and the central leader of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Fred Lee Shuttlesworth (1922–2011) was one of the pioneering figures in the civil rights era. The organization he founded in 1956, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), joined with Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to protest segregation in Birmingham in 1963. Partly as a result of those direct-action demonstrations, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964."

The exhibit is a compelling portrait of an important individual and important period in Birmingham, Alabama, and American history. You can read more about Rev. Shuttlesworth here and here. Among the numerous articles and books is Andrew Manis' 1999 A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Fred Shuttlesworth and a 2000 volume edited by Manis and Marjorie White, Birmingham Revolutionaries: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. 

Birmingham Photo of the Day (80): Paris Bookstall Protest in 1971

I came across this photo on the Alabama Archives site as linked below; that page has the following description of the event in April 1971:

"Christian demonstrators marching on the sidewalk in front of the Paris Bookstall, an adult bookstore in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. They are holding up their index fingers to mean "One Way / Jesus Way" (the slogan on a poster used by the same demonstrators at a later event)."

Well, I thought, this one should be interesting to research. And so it was...

Birmingham has had its share of adult bookstores and theaters over the years and Paris Bookstall was one. The business was operated at 2125 Fifth Avenue North beginning in 1969 by Chester McKinney, who also managed the Pussy Cat Adult Theatre at 7610 First Avenue North. More about that facility momentarily.

On February 26, 1970, in a case in Mobile, the Alabama Circuit Court declared a magazine called "New Directions" to be obscene. On March 10 a state attorney and state investigator delivered a letter to McKinney informing him of the the Mobile court decree. On March 31 the two men returned to the store and purchased a copy of the magazine. McKinney was charged and convicted of selling obscene material in a jury trial. He appealed to the state Criminal Court of Appeals, which upheld the conviction. McKinney then appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court rulings on May 9, 1974, and denied McKinney's request for a rehearing.

He did not stop there, however; the U.S. Supreme Court took the case and heard arguments on December 15, 1975, and rendered a decision on March 23 the following year. Justice William Rehnquist delivered the court's verdict: "We reverse." McKinney had been convicted of selling material judicially declared obscene by the court in Mobile but had not been allowed at his own trial to litigate the obscenity of "New Directions". Bill Baxley was Alabama Attorney General at this time.

How much longer the Paris Bookstall operated after this decision I have been unable to discover. McKinney seems to have kept it going for some years despite the protests and court cases.

Oh, about that Pussy Cat Adult Theatre. In April, May, July and August 1971 a city police sergeant purchased tickets and viewed the adult films "Vice Hustler", "Dead Eye Dick", "Love on a Mountain", and "Fantasy of Love" as well as various short films. McKinney was charged with violations of a municipal ordinance against "knowingly exhibiting obscene color motion picture films." His trial court convictions were upheld by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals on October 29, 1973. I've yet to find what happened after that decision; perhaps McKinney paid a fine and devoted his resources to fighting the "New Directions" case.

You can read the--uh--juicy details of the court cases here and here.

Recent efforts to fight adult bookstores and theaters in East Lake are described here and here.

The Paris Bookstall sign can be seen down the sidewalk on the right. Presumably that is the former Bankhead Hotel, now the Bankhead Towers in the background. 

Photo by Ralph Farrow, April 1971

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History Digital Collections

Ted's Restaurant in Birmingham

Recently Dianne and I were returning home from Huntsville and decided to stop somewhere for lunch before reaching Pelham. We first tried Niki's West on Finlay Boulevard, a legendary place we've enjoyed several times, but it was packed. So we got back on the Interstate and then exited at UAB intending to go to another favorite, Makarios at Five Points. We never made it, since we passed by Ted's Restaurant and swung in there instead.

We had eaten at Ted's once before, many years ago, and the lunch this time was as good or better than we remembered. We can highly recommend this meat-and-three with a Greek spin. Dianne had the souvlakia which was excellent; she let me have a taste! Since she got the last skewer of that, I tried the baked chicken and it too was delicious--as were the veggies. 

Ted's is one of many restaurants with a Greek pedigree that have opened in Birmingham and Alabama over the past century. Ted Sarris and his wife Litsa opened the place at 328 12th Street South in 1973. Tasos Touloupis and his wife Beba bought the restaurant in 2000 and refurbished the interior and expanded the menu. 

If you are in the area. or even if you're not, give Ted's a try. You can read more about the history of Ted's here. More about Birmingham's Greek restaurants is here and others in Alabama here. 

A Visit to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Dianne and I recently visited the Birmingham Botanical Gardens on a wonderful spring day with blue skies and temperatures in the mid-sixties. This visit was our first one in many years. Since we arrived around noon, the first thing we did was eat lunch outside at the Gardens Cafe. The shrimp and grits and soups were excellent. Then we began to explore. 

Below are some of the photos I took and some commentary. The Gardens are made up of more than 30 specific areas, such as the Rose Garden, Japanese Garden and the Conservatory. The three broad categories are Collections, Nature and Culture. The Gardens also have an art gallery, a library and a plant information center. 

One thing we missed because I didn't think of it was the Moon Tree, an American sycamore. That's pretty embarrassing since I've written a blog post on "Alabama's Moon Trees". Sheesh. Maybe next time!

Birmingham Mayor Jimmy Morgan was a driving force behind the Gardens' development; planning began in 1960 and the Conservatory opened in December 1962. Another Morgan project was the Birmingham Zoo.

You can read more history here. A Flickr group with thousands of Gardens photos can be found here. 

We entered here at Blount Plaza, just across from the parking lot and past the gift shop and cafe.

I'm always up for looking at a map. 

Blount Plaza was dedicated in 1988 and this red granite sculpture, "Granite Garden" by Jesus Moroles was installed. Moroles [1950-2015] was known for his large, abstract works in granite. 

What's a botanical garden in Birmingham, Alabama, without a reproduction of Giuseppi Moretti's creation, the largest cast iron statue in the world? This one is part of the "Vulcans on Parade" project that placed various such statues around the community. 

We explored the Conservatory at some length, since we were all alone there for most of our walk through it. The structure was designed by Henry Teuscher, a Canadian glasshouse designer and resembles the one he designed for the Montreal Botanical Gardens. 

The Cacti Collection offers a wide variety of these fascinating plants.

Frank Fleming [1940-2019] was an Alabama sculptor probably best known for his Storyteller fountain at Birmingham's Five Points South.

 

This path to the Japanese Garden is a pleasant, shaded walk. 

The 7.5 acre Japanese Garden was formally opened by the Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. in 1967. This location features such elements as a tea garden, bonsai house, koi pond and various meditative spaces. 

The pond at the Japanese Garden has many large and colorful koi and numerous painted turtles. A Gardens volunteer told us their oldest koi was some 25 years old. We also got to see a large soft shell turtle and a large, plain old carp. 

A new raised walkway takes you through the bamboo stand, a quiet place despite being only yards from Cahaba Road.

Ah, what's a bamboo stand without a Southern pine in it? 

Birmingham Photo of the Day [79]: Peerless Saloon Building in 1939

The Peerless Saloon opened in 1889 in this three-story building at 1900 2nd Avenue North. After a shootout in May 1906, Mayor George Ward ordered that the saloon be closed. A vaudeville venue, the Vaudette Theater, operated in the building from 1908 until 1918 or so. The Vaudette incorporated as a "moving picture" theater in March 1917. A renovation of the building was done in 1920. 

This 1939 photograph was taken by the city's legendary photographer, O.V. Hunt, who documented many buildings during his career. Businesses operating at that time in the building included Economy Clothes and Florsheim Shores. Florsheim  was founded in Chicago in 1892 and by 1939 had numerous retail outlets and distributors around the U.S.

By 2000 concerns arose for the future of the building. In May 2001, the Alabama Historical Commission included it on the annual "Places in Peril" listing, but demolition took place in summer 2003.

A second photo below was taken in the early 1900's.

The Peerless Saloon building with signs for Economy Clothes and Florsheim Shoes visible. Taken by O.V. Hunt

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Quoted from the source:

"Black and white photograph of Second Avenue North looking eastward from Nineteenth Street. Prominent in the photograph are the Peerless Saloon building in the foreground and the First National Bank of Birmingham building in the distance. Bunting and Confederate flags decorating the streets indicate that the photograph was made during one of the Confederate veteran reunions that occurred in Birmingham in the early 1900s."

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Wanda McKay & the 1938 Birmingham Air Show

I first encountered Wanda McKay in one of her three appearances on The Lone Ranger TV show in the early 1950's. Some of us do such things in these days of modern times. I thought she looked familiar, so I consulted Wikipedia and found an entry for her. She wasn't the actress I was thinking about, but lo and behold what did I find--an Alabama connection. See how these things work?

McKay was born on June 22, 1915, in Portland, Oregon, under the name of Dorothy Quackenbush. The family moved to Texas where she finished growing up, and after high school graduation moved to New York City. She did some modeling that included magazine covers and advertisements and billboards for Chesterfield cigarettes before finding a job with Trans World Airlines as a clerk in the Kansas City office as well as occasional model for TWA.

According to that Wikipedia entry and her obituary in the Los Angeles Times, TWA sent her to an air show in Birmingham in 1938 as its entry in the Miss American Aviation contest. She won and by the following year had a contract with Paramount Studios in Hollywood. From 1939 until 1957 she appeared in more than forty films and TV episodes. From 1977 until his death in 1981, McKay was married to the great singer and songwriter Hoagy Carmichael. She died April 11, 1996.

So far I've discovered little else about McKay's visit to Birmingham. The air show was apparently the National Air Carnival which was held in the city in September 1938. Further research awaits!

UPDATE 22 March 2021

A bit of research for me by an archivist at one fo the Smithsonian Institution's museums in Washington, D.C. has produced a windfall. These air show images are courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum's Archives Department. Further comments are below. 

Source: Wikipedia

This photo shows an unidentified stewardess sitting on the boarding stairs of a TWA Douglas DC-3. Based on the known photograph of Dorothy Quackenbush below in which she models a stewardess uniform, I think we can conclude this one is also her. 

See the caption below for information about this photograph.

Source: Listal

Source: FamousFix

Source: Pinterest

Source: Wikipedia