After the long, 65 mile, ride to Grove Hill, I took a day off, and rode to Coffeeville, Lindon, Livingston, and here, Aliceville. Yesterday’s ride was my favorite so far. I got out at the crack of dawn, when the weather was coolest. This part of the route took me on smaller farm roads. A half hour would pass before any cars interrupted the birdsong that followed me the whole way. I arrived in Aliceville around noon, just as it was getting hot, took a shower, ate lunch, and headed to the Aliceville History Museum. Aliceville was the site of a WWII prisoner of war camp, and they kept a museum to commemorate the moment. They housed as many as 6,000 POWs. Determined to meet the Geneva Conventions, the military fed the prisoners as well as they would feed their own soldiers. That meant, sometimes, they had better rations than the local population, but if there were conflicts about that, they didn’t come up in the museum, and the camp seemed to inject economic life into the community.
Many of the former inmates have returned to visit the museum. I noticed that there’s a modern prison just out of town.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve crossed the Tombigee River the last few days. This winding River has been and continues to be an important trade route. Coal still flows down the river system, where it combines with another River to form The Alabama River, and then flows into Mobile Bay, a major port. Coal, among other things, flows down, oil moves up.
In the 1830s, it was cotton that moved up this River system. There’s a lot of new scholarship about the politics and economics of slavery. I’ve been dipping my toes into a really interesting book by Kerri Leigh Merritt: Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South. I thought about this book when I stumbled upon this historical marker back in Coffeeville:
The sign doesn’t go into any detail, but it made me think of Kerri Leigh Merritt’s book. Poor and middling whites had no natural alliance with wealthy slave owners. In fact, there was quite a bit of resentment against wealthy slave owners. Slavery drove wages down, and cotton drove land prices up, squeezing poor whites from their income and their land. Does this shed light on the Coffeeville vote?
Another historian, Heather Cox Richardson writes about the ideology of the slave owner. The southern slave-owners never accepted America’s spiritual document, The Declaration of Independence. It was never self evident to them that all people were created equal. The small-d democratic principles of equality of opportunity were neither necessary or good in their mind. Richardson writes about the push and pull of America’s democratic impulses and our aristocratic impulses.
The democratic impulses have always depended upon African Americans to do the heavy lifting. Poor whites have always benefited from this heavy lifting. Whether it’s building schools, hospitals, roads, or professionalized policing, when Black Americans fight and win, White Americans benefit.
Ok. Let’s catch up on some pictures!
Peddling, learning, teaching. I’m loving your journey!
What a splendid adventure through history, thanks for taking us along!