The Magic City Classic has often provided a refuge. This year provided a refuge from Donald Trump.
on a warm and sunny Saturday were very much the same as prior years — excuse me, the Amazon Magic City Classic .For the first time, the annual battle between Alabama’s two biggest HBCUs — Alabama State and Alabama A&M — in Birmingham had a national title sponsor to join presenting sponsor Coca-Cola.
Yes, parking was still excruciating. I’m not mad at the annual payday the Classic provides anyone with a yard, parking lot or a plot of dirt within two miles of the stadium on the city’s west side. It, too, is a Classic tradition, part of what makes the annual celebration of Black culture, family and fellowship so unique.And there were the familiar Classic smells, sounds and sights. Smokey culinary aromas filled the air on all sides of the stadium, as did the thump and grind of basslines that stirred the weakening concrete around the aging edifice. And the fashion sightings ranged from regal toThe Classic has long been far more than a day of food, fellowship, fashion and football. It’s a weeklong vibe now. Starting last Monday, Blacks throughout the region — along with in-the-know white folks — greeted each other with “Happy Classic!” We nodded towards each other a bit more affirmatively. Shook hands and hugged more fervently. And took every opportunity to gather, acknowledge and toast. To honor our talents, our resilience, our triumphs. The very first meeting between the two schools — 101 years ago in 1924 — wasn’t even much of a classic. And for years, the game wasn’t much of a rivalry. Alabama State dominated the inaugural encounter 30-0 and won 11 of the first 13, including the first eight. They also didn’t play every year in those first decades. No time for games, perhaps, in those harrowing days. America was deep in the throes of Jim Crow. African Americans were being tortured, lynched and murdered for . America was our collective opponent. Educationally, Blacks were still forbidden from attending many PWIs. So, HBCUs, many founded in an age when it was illegal in much of the South to even teach a Black person to read, thrived as havens for young Black men and women who thirsted for education and the heights it could help them reach. HBCUs poured into those students, nurtured them, and created through them generations of leaders in every field. Graduates and attendees altered history, built successful enterprises, spoke with eloquence and saved lives — in spite of.My mother attended Langston University in Oklahoma and became an educator, like many Black women of her generation. Others became nurses or obtained the first of the public sector jobs that opened to them in the late 1950s and into the 1960s.attended Native schools in the early days of statehood and did not attend college. Yet he worked his way from bellhop to, as I’ve shared, being a The generation behind them had more options, as did the generation behind us — though headwinds still raged. The Magic City Classic has been played every year since 1945. It endured into and through the Civil Rights movement. In 1963, it was played just weeks after four young girls and two boys were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. That summer Black youth in Birmingham were fire-hosed by Bull Connor’s firemen in Kelly Ingram Park for daring to protest segregation downtown.in those years. Maybe it was a necessary pause — a respite offering a day to reflect, rejuvenate and fight like hell against a football rival before returning to fight like hell for dignity, opportunity and survival against a rival called racism.The tone was more tentative than festive. Little wonder. It was played near the end of a horrifically deadly year in Birmingham, a year scarred by gun violence and the highest number of homicides in decades.. For others, staying home last year may have felt safer than venturing to Legion. Understandably. This year, while the cloud of gun violence has certainly not disappeared, homicides are about half of last year’s eventual total of 151.At one juncture on Saturday, I scanned the stands. They seemed far more filled than at any Classic I’ve attended since moving to Birmingham almost 11 years ago. Attendance was tallied at 69,372, well above the Classic average. Yet what I sensed Saturday and throughout the week was fueled by more than people’s presence. There was purpose.Our culture is under attack as the administration seeks to whitewash our nation’s most brutal truths by removing depictions of our painful racial path from museums and other public spaces,has gutted critical medical research aimed at closing racial and gender gaps in healthcare, await a critical Supreme Court ruling that may significantly alter protections under the Voting Rights Act that have long been supported by both parties.something different about this Classic: We needed it. We needed it as much as it was needed during Jim Crow and in the darkest days of the struggle for civil rights. We needed it as a pause, if just for a few days, as a respite from the daily battle against the common foe that resides the White House. We needed it to honor and celebrate each other and those generations who previously convened for what is as much restoration as rivalry. We needed it to nod towards each other a bit more affirmatively, shake hands and hug more fervently and smile and say, “Happy Classic!” If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our
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