Race relations in Alabama – good news

I live in a suburb of Birmingham. When I moved to Alabama, I remember the looks that I received from friends and colleagues. I often joke (but as most jokes understand the underlying truth) that prejudice against Alabama is the only politically correct prejudice in the US.

This article makes me very happy. My experience in Alabama over the past 14 years has been very positive. This article should make everyone smile.

‘Mockingbird’ School Drama Bridges Gaps

A high school play based on Harper Lee’s classic ”To Kill a Mockingbird” brought together black and white high school students to tell the classic story of racial injustice — and even drew out the novel’s reclusive author.

Wednesday night’s invitation-only performance was organized to celebrate diversity and arts education in Alabama, the home state of the novel’s author, whose book and the movie made from it won immediate acclaim at a time when Alabama was still rigidly segregated.

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The two public schools near Birmingham are only about 16 miles apart. But Mountain Brook is one of the state’s wealthiest communities, with a median home price of about $300,000, while the same figure in Fairfield is about $68,000.

Mountain Brook High draws from an overwhelmingly white suburb, while Fairfield students are from a mostly black district.

The performance has helped the students transcend not only the 30-minute distance between their communities, but a cultural divide as well. Teens who were strangers this time last year are spending hours on the phone, sending each other multiple text messages per day and chatting on the Internet networking site Facebook.

Just a very happy story – no medicine – just good feelings.