Journey to the Smoky Mountains! Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, & Montgomery.
Reflection & Remembrance on a visit to Legacy Museum & Beyond.
I needed a vacation and was eager to see my son in Florida so, my wife Farida and I left Allentown on Jan 23rd 2023 for Smoky Mountain, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Montgomery.
It was long a nine-hour drive to Pigeon Forge however, we listen to six lectures of Syed Muhammad Rizvi (Toronto) while driving.
The lectures were very educational and inshallah, I will be using some well research material for my blog. I never felt tired nor the traveled look too long, may be it was the lectures of the Syed.
Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg is four season attraction with lots of place to visit, such as smoky mountain park, Alcatraz crime museum, Titanic Museum, The Island in Pigeon Forge and many other places.
Pigeon Forge has also a ski resort with stunning scenery if interest, but the best is that it has some good seafood restaurants, beautiful hotels, and boardwalk like international drive in Orlando.
Next day after breakfast we were ready to travel for 5 ½ hour to Montgomery, Alabama. A town significant to visit for its historical significant of Legacy Museum, Rosa Park, Bus Boycott, and Dr. King.
Montgomery has a long and fascinating history of Slavery, Confederacy, and Civil Rights movement, notably the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and desegregation of schools.
Montgomery is situated on seven hills overlooking the Alabama River, and played an exceptionally large role in American history.
Montgomery, has the Dexter Street Baptist Church. It has the house Dr. Martin Luther King and his family and also where previous pastors lived.
A must visits the house, church, museum, and the outdoors of Kings Garden for reflection and contemplation of how he conducted his life as preacher and civil right leader.
Located in the downtown Montgomery, the Hank Williams Museum pays tribute to America’s first iconic country music superstar Hank Williams.
The Hyundai Motor Manufacturing factory provides visitors free tour, with the opportunity to get close-up view of robots and human working side-by-side to produce Hyundai’s Sonata and Elantra models.
A visit to Legacy Museum and Memorial is a must to understand the atrocities which occurred during grim days of slavery and the legacy slavery left behind.
The museum is over 10 years work by Bryan Stevenson. It is very modern and graphically descriptive, using interactive media, videos and sculptures to fully immerse visitors in the sights & sounds of slavery.
The museum is located on the site where slaves were forced to work in chains in the cotton warehouse, just meters away from railway station where slave were brought and auctioned & trafficked inland.
The Legacy Museum; From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration.
I am in the Tampa, Florida, still reflecting and processing the experience on the visit to legacy museum and writing this piece for my blog at
From the beginning to the end, each step of this visit was meaningful. I found myself increasingly disappointed that why more white people need to see this.
So, I will continue writing and talking about the museum, and to encourage Muslims, Black, White and Brown people to visit. It has to be a pilgrimage for African American as it was for me to visit Iran.
As followers of Shia of Imam Ali to visit the Legacy Museum is to re-live the history of Karbala- the painful journey of Zainab and his family in chains beyond Karbala to Kufa, and Damascus.
Ten steps into the museum’s first room, pitch dark there is a wall screen where the entire history starting from the shores of Ghana to slave markets in Montgomery is relayed continually.
The visit has impacted me profoundly, and it has inspired me to create a change in our society. On the walls are fantastic quotes and videos sharing the tragic history of slavery that occurred in Montgomery.
On the walls to follow, there is a timeline that exhibits the events that have lead up to our modern day society from enslavement to lynching, segregation, and mass incarceration.
A complete failure of our Justice system, where 1 in 3 blacks born are expected to go to jail. US has 2.6 million people highest in the world incarcerated. And over 3,000 children as young as 8 years are sentence to life imprisonment.
There is room replicating a prison environment, solitary confinement, and four telephone booths, and when you sit on the visitor’s side you can hear the inmate telling stories of how they were mistreated by the law.
I can go on and on, but it is very painful to write like when I write about the oppression and injustices done to our fourteen stars starting from Abi Sufyan, Mu’awiya, Yazid and Umayyad Caliphate to Abbasid rule.
Daily I am confronted with the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, racial terror of lynching, White Supremacy and as a follower of Imam Ali I have to confront injustice by Speaking Up! Silent No More!
The visit reminded me of the tragedy of Karbala and the journey of Zainab, the granddaughter of Prophet Muhammed (PBU) and the sister of Imam Hussain from Kabala to Kufa to Damascus as prisoners.
I wonder when will the followers of Prophet Muhammad will come with this type of Legacy Museum on the tragedy of Karbala and the injustices upon the Shi’ites and its Islamic scholars for last 1400 years.
Islamic Republic of Iran has done a wonderful job on Shah’s Savak atrocities and Iraq war with the museum.
Bryan Stevenson has made an everlasting legacy for his people on slavery. May Lord reward him plentifully, and provide long life with good health to continue of speaking out against injustice.
Memorial are important reminder of history, God willing, a day will come to honor the horrific history of the oppression and genocides of the Shi’ites from Nigeria to Afghanistan.
We need to speak simple truth to power as painful it may be. Speak Up! Silent No More!
Memorials like Holocaust Memorial in Germany, Genocide memorial in Kigali, Rwanda, Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, Abret museum in Tehran, Iran & Albanian genocide museum in Isfahan, Iran are meant for preservation of history of oppression, and injustices.
The Legacy Museum provides a comprehensive history of 12 million enslaved people were brought from the shores of West Africa.
They were imprisoned alongside with horses, pigs, cattle and bales of cotton. Once on shore and auctioned, were forced to labor in bondage. This is done beautifully in imagery, and songs.
Indeed, Legacy Museum and Memorial is a sacred ground for the dedication of those who have been lynched and suffered due to the sins of colonial-imperial state owners.
No cameras, all the employees were so polite, humble, and wore black uniform, we Shi’ites adorn our Islamic Centers with black clothes during the month of Muharrum to commemorate the tragedy of Karbala.
The writings everywhere were white on black background. There are over 200 sculptures, animated short films, and speeches of Dr. M.L. King and other civil rights leaders.
There is entire wing on lynching to examining the role of media, and the racial terror. There is a wall of 800 jars of soil or mud representing lynching victims killed throughout South & beyond.
One need not complain why the Shi’ites prostate on the soil (Turba) where Imam Hussain was martyred. It is quite remarkable what this country has done in the name of greed, hate and racism.
Total of four thousand were lynched. The museum is the community response to reckoning with the painful past. EJI has documents and films on Jim Crow era and barriers to vote for black people.
There is a wing on mass incarceration, school-to-prison pipeline, police brutality, solitary confinement, and un fair criminal justice system.
The legacy Museum includes a world-class art gallery with major works from the most celebrated artist in the country like Kwame Akoto-Bamfo from Ghana who created hundreds of scriptures.
Returning to the hotels the front desk girl Oyana Moorer ask us of the visit. A very religious girl said; “God made us Black to go through these trial and tribulations because we were tested and chosen ones.”
She went on the share with us that few years ago her husband passed away in his sleep and bringing three children as single mother is very difficult. Holding two jobs is now writing a book call “The Wanderer.”
Though I am still reflecting, contemplating, and absorbing, I am grateful for this experience and continue to write and speak up.
Bryan Stevenson & Equal Justice Institute has thread the history from slavery to reconstruction to segregation to lynching to the present criminal justice system, and death row.
Bryan Steven; “Our nation’s history of racial injustices cast a shadow across the American landscape. This shadow cannot be lifted until we shine the light of truth on the destructive violence that shaped our nation, traumatized people of color, and compromised our commitment to the rule of law and to equal justice…The legacy of slavery has certainly created a disease of poisoned harvest of racism that continues to this day.”
In 2010, EJI, founded by Bryan Stevenson, author of “Just Mercy”, began work on what was to become “the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people.” The Museum open in 2018.
Legacy Museum is the model to create histories of genocide, apartheid, and horrific human rights abuses in doom Bedouin kingdom, Arab monarchies, dictatorial regimes and Zionist Israel of the Palestinians.