50 States, Day 303

Atlanta  38 Miles

"Don't let anybody make you feel that you're nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance."

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

We visited the Capitol today and for the first time, it was in session. Walking around with cameras and dressed like slugs, we felt like interlopers. But it's 'of the people, by the people and for the people,' even people that look like their crap has been drug all over the country. 

Lots of suits and power outfits, making Big Deals. Apparently they were on lunch break, probably where most business got done. 

The Georgia Capitol went up in 1889, quite a while after Sherman came through and burned Atlanta. It wasn't the capital then anyway. Of interest however, were the churches. They survived, thanks to Father Thomas O'Reilly, who persuaded Sherman to spare the Catholic Church building as well as the others. Legend has it that he told him, "If you burn the Catholic Church, all Catholics in the ranks of the Union Army will mutiny!" Apparently Sherman wasn't a Seventh Day Adventist.

We hopped back on the scooter, braving the forty-eight degree temps and wind to check out the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. More trivia, his mother called him ML, because if she were to say, "Martin Luther King Junior, you get back here!" he would have been in Macon by the time she got his name out. 

I lived during MLK's lifetime, and learned so much today, it was amazing. I remember the police hitting the blacks with fire hoses and such, but I assumed they were being naughty. And while some blacks thought violence was an option, MLK preached passive resistance, and he learned it from Ghandi. A good example was the buses. Rosa Parks got arrested for not giving up her seat and things got hot. The nerve of her! Wanting to sit on a bus with white folk and not giving up her seat. King had his people boycott the buses, and they didn't ride for a year. Almost bankrupted the transit company. Finally the  Supreme Court said anyone could sit in a bus. It's difficult to imagine people acting like second graders and having to get the Supremes to settle the deal. 

Another? He was worn out, ready to quit. Sat at the kitchen table and poured his heart out to God, afraid if he faltered his people would lose their resolve. He felt God''s presence and regained his own resolve.

Three days later they bombed his house. 

He was arrested fourteen times, stabbed, beaten, reviled and hated. But he carried on anyway, and was eventually assassinated. An excellent and compelling tribute to MLK.

And now, with more knowledge in her head than a Jeopardy contestant, Quilter Girl!

We had every intention of visiting the Jimmy Carter Library too, but time, cold and fear of rush hour got to me so we headed back to the motel.  We stopped at a Sonny's BBQ for dinner and had a great meal.  I am really going to have to find BBQ sauce as good as theirs in Vegas or I'll have to find a recipe!  My interesting tidbit today was that the building committee that built the Capitol had a budget of $1 million and managed to return $100 of it to the state treasury.  Pretty good budgeting. 

QG

Tomorrow we head to Plains, Georgia to the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site (over a hundred miles!). See you then.