Survey Trip to Bamberg, SC

Written: September 21, 2008

 

Today Elizabeth, Barak, and I went to Bamberg. It was an interesting experience.

We met Harry Chrissy at the House of Pizza where we went over strategies and went over what areas we would be covering while we are passing out flyers. He said that we were the lucky ones because we were going first we would be working with people who were in the nicer neighborhoods.

Once we got “out in the field” it was incredibly slow and I would even say that within the first hour and a half not one person would take my survey. It felt a little hopeless at times. I talked to a lot of elderly people who kept saying, “I don’t have time.” Other people wanted to fill it out but were only home on their lunch break or were about to leave for a doctor’s appointment or were filling something out on the computer. But then one lady found out that I was from Clemson and she agreed to take the survey and then others refused to take it because I was from Clemson. We were obviously in Gamecock territory. But with other people, we would knock on their doors and no one would answer and then we would walk on down the road and we would see them leaving their house. Needless to say it got a little frustrating.

We found out that there is a huge drug problem in Bamberg, that everything in Bamberg is owned by 1 or 2 people—such as gas stations or the Piggily Wiggily, and when talking to the people that I surveyed, it was apparent that the cops are very crooked in the town. Harry asked us what our turn down rate was “maybe 2:1” we said that it was more like 3:1 if not worse. I don’t think that Harry was expecting that. He said that people in Denmark were much more concerned about their community whereas these people seemed to brush it off. One lady looked at the map on the back of the survey and said that she liked the neighborhood that she lived in but none of the other ones.

I actually feel as though we would have had a better response from lower income community members.  Because it felt as though with the wealthier folks were ignorant of what was going on around them. 

Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement

So after our last class, I sat down and talked with my mom about some of the old southern stereotypes and about segregation.  She was born and raised in Alabama during a specifically prevalent time for Birmingham. Birmingham is typically known, not so proudly, for a lot of the escalated civil rights events that occurred in the late 50s and 60s. 

My grandparents, on my mothers' side of the family, consisted of strong blue collar families.  My grandfather went against the norm and went to college at Birmingham-Southern College (not Alabama or Auburn- and furthermore a ritzy private school) and then went on to Vanderbilt to pursue his masters degree.  Later on in life, my grandfather went on to work for the city.  Unfortunately he was mistrusted because people saw his education at a "fancy private school" to be well above his status and he should know his place.

My grandfather worked under the infamous, Bull Connor (http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bull connor.htm), Birmingham's City Commissioner.  My grandfather worked for many of the major publicly operated buildings such as the zoo, public parks, and most importantly Legion Field. 

When the race riots occurred, Bull Connor ordered for the fire hoses and police dogs be used to settle rioters.  So many people were arrested that they ran out of room in all of the jails in Birmingham.  Mr. Connor wanted to put people in the middle of Legion Field and my grandfather refused and would not open the facility to such an event.  He told Mr. Connor that you will make the a place of martyrdom.  Bull Connor threatened to fire him and he said, "Well, I guess you'll just have to fire me."

Later on, my grandfather promoted the first black person to a supervisor position.  In his position he would be telling white people what to do.  There were often telephone threats to the house and my grandmother put my mom and her sister in the back closet when a brick was thrown through the window.   She called the police and wasn't sure if the police were going to come.  After that my grandparents decided to keep a gun in the house.   My grandfather told my grandmother that, "You'd never shoot anybody..." she said, "watch me." -- You don't test a good ole southern woman and her babies- she'll kill you.

The other thing that really stood out in my mother's mind was when President Kennedy was assassinated.  kennedy was strongly disliked in the south.  She can vividly remember kids cheering and teachers clapping because Kennedy was a strong civil rights activist and they were obviously not.  Those that came from a more "educated" background knew what kind of tragedy this really was.  My mothers teacher was quietly crying when she came back in the room. 

Assignment #1

I decided to take this course for a number of reasons. Ever since I first found out about Auburn's Rural Studio Project (website listed below), I immediately wanted to become involved in something similar. This course appears to be that "something similar". I hope to obtain more clarity with the situation surrounding poverty within the community, how we, as students, can create positive changes, and hopefully create a sense of community that people are proud to be from. As a G1 Architecture student, I come in without a thorough knowledge of my area of study. This course, I imagine, will help me in conceiving of a real idea of what real world issues are that we, as designers, are having to deal with and the politics that are intertwined within the communities that we are hoping to inspire. I think that this project will help me comprehend a lot of the background work that goes into a project that no one sees and often times goes under appreciated.

I hope that this course will help me in defining my career path, more specifically if low-income community design-build projects are an area that I want to look into further. 

I don't really think that I have much expertise to bring to the table; however, I do have a small fraction of experience with community service and involvement. I helped Auburn students at the Rural Studio with the Akron Boys and Girls Club II and have a very very small understanding of what kind of work and dedication goes into a project like theirs. While there, I could see how important their work was for the community, yet in spite of that, the community seemed to look at them as more of a nuisance than anything else. The students told me how they had to start having a guard dog sleep in the building overnight so that things would stop being stolen. This understanding, while a pessimistic one, I think will aid in reminding oursleves that sometimes people don't know what's best for them, so hopefully we can lift the veil thats covering their eyes.