BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- As Birmingham makes plans to mark the 50th anniversary of seminal civil rights activities of 1963, some officials have consternation over how to commemorate those moments.
A discussion over a funding request for additional signs marking the city's civil rights trail and money to support 2013 50th anniversary events has sparked intense conversation among council members who warn they don't want the city's civil rights history commandeered by special interest groups or packaged and sanitized by Mayor William Bell's office.
Points of contention surround which groups will be the focus of the 1963 commemoration and route plans for new signs highlighting Birmingham's civil rights trail.
"I've been hearing some conversations that I don't like," said Councilwoman Lashunda Scales.
The City Council is considering a request from Bell to approve $250,000 to fund 2013 activities and another $200,000 to create the remaining signs for the city's civil rights trail. That project began in 2009, with signs featuring photographs and narratives placed throughout downtown where significant civil rights activities occurred.
The Budget and Finance Committee will consider those requests next week, but already some members raised critical questions.
Scales said Birmingham's civil rights history was primarily a movement by blacks fighting for equal rights for blacks, but she is concerned that the message will be taken away and interpreted toward other interest groups. Scales said she opposes anything that dilutes the 1960s story.
"One of my parents said to me that it is unfortunate that in this town we have to apologize for being black," she said. "If you're going to tell it, tell it right and tell the story the way it was."
For example, Scales called this spring's ''Living in Limbo: Lesbian Families in the Deep South" photo 'display at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, as an inappropriate comparison to the black struggle for civil rights. Scales said she was "floored" by the exhibit.
"That's a choice," she said. "I didn't choose to be black. I came here black. That's the difference. I know there's a difference between a choice and being black."
Scales said she feared other groups would overshadow the rightful organizations responsible for the 1960s civil rights gains.
Councilman Steven Hoyt disagreed, saying the movement of the 1960s, while involving mostly black citizens, in a broader sense was a call for human rights for all people. Hoyt said he understood a call for remembering specifics of the era, but said its celebration and commemoration must be inclusive to preserve the overarching theme of civil rights.
"It should not dilute the civil rights movement, it should amplify it, because the movement was not just about black folks," Hoyt said. "The movement was about human rights, and most of them happened to be black folks."
On the issue of the proposed new trail signs, both Scales and Councilwoman Maxine Parker questioned why signs highlighting Collegeville and Bethel Baptist Church are in the later phases of the project - after downtown.
Renee Kemp-Rotan, a Bell aide overseeing the trail project, insisted that Bethel is not overlooked and is part of the overall plan that extends from downtown.
"Bethel was not left out," she said. "It really has to do with a rollout and an unfolding."
Still, Parker repeated her earlier concern that the former church of the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, headquarters for much of the early civil rights activity, would be given second-billing in the plan.
"I did not say that Bethel was left out. I said, 'Why is Bethel at the end of the discussion when it should be at the beginning the discussion?'" Parker said to Kemp-Rotan.
Hoyt and Scales offered more harsh criticism, speculating that the city was shy to discuss Bethel because of its location in Collegeville, a poor, blighted and polluted north Birmingham community.
The Environmental Protection Agency has declared part of the area a Superfund site and has intervened to force neighboring longtime plants to clean up contamination. Scales said the reason for the downplaying is simple: The city does not want to showcase the struggling neglected neighborhood.
"Because it's going to show the blight there," she said. "You're still dealing with the same fight."
Kemp-Rotan defended the project, saying neither Bethel nor Collegeville is snubbed and will be promoted.
"You have to make the foot before you make the sock," she said. "We can't roll all of the districts out at one time. Each of these districts is going to have their story told."
Jarvis Patton, Bell's chief of operations, said Parker's concerns would be addressed.
"I do believe that whatever we do has to be in concert," Hoyt said.