Birmingham has had an image
problem for almost forty years. Civil rights demonstrations, the bombing of the Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church, Bull Connor, the arrest of Doctor Martin Luther King, fire hoses, and
police dogs -- all those images from Birmingham 's past are hard to shake off. However, no
matter what negatives people point out about Birmingham and no matter how backward others
wish to paint us, the fact remains that there are at least two educational institutions and at least
one medical facility in the Magic City which are as good as can be found anywhere in the United
States. In other words, there's plenty to be proud of in Birmingham.
Let's be forthright, however, and
concede that there are problems here in Birmingham. Besides all the bad memories from the
Civil Rights movement, the current situation includes some of the worst public schools in the state.
Some Birmingham public schools are so poor that they are in immediate danger of being taken
over by state educational authorities. Also, The Birmingham News just reported a study
which shows that there are 43 other states which have healthier and longer-living populations than
we do. Ironically, however, it is just those two fields -- education and health-care -- where we have
the best reasons to be proud.
Anyone who knows about Birmingham-Southern College (BSC) and the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA) is aware that those two schools are top-of-line, state-of-the-art schools. BSC, for example, was named the Number One small liberal arts college in America by Newsweek just a few years back. Even more impressive than BSC, however, is ASFA, which is as good a public high school as there is anywhere in the country. Last spring ASFA was rated the fourth best public high school in the nation on the basis of such factors as SAT and ACT scores and on the amount of scholarship money won by its graduates. Last spring the fifty graduates at ASFA racked up over $2,000,000 in scholarships. That's over $40,000 per student, enough to pay tuition at the University of Alabama or Auburn for about five years. Also, what I have personally seen of ASFA is awe-inspiring. Just last week, for example, I went to see the student production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The quality of the acting, the costumes, the set, the lighting, and the sound were good enough to do a professional company proud. Perhaps Birmingham is not really doing so badly in education after all.
Perhaps it is in the field of health-care that Birmingham has the most to be proud of, for Birmingham is the home of the Kirklin Clinic, probably the best organ transplant center in the country. People come to Birmingham from everywhere in the world to get heart transplants, kidney and liver transplants, and even the highly complicated double lung transplants needed by patients with such critical diseases as emphysema and cystic fibrosis. Also, once again, what I have seen personally of Kirklin Clinic supports such a high rating. I have spent about fifteen hours over a period of three different days accompanying a young cystic fibrosis patient through the examinations and testing necessary to put him on the waiting list for a double lung transplant. He had at least 25 different appointments on those visits, but never once was the staff late in seeing him, never once was he given a stack of forms to fill out while he waited, and never once was anyone discourteous or inefficient at handling his case. Any patient or family member I have asked about the clinic agrees with me. It's really a miraculous place.
So the next time you hear people complaining about how backward or undesirable a place Birmingham is, try reminding them of our triumphs like Birmingham-Southern, Alabama School of Fine Arts, and the Kirklin Clinic. We have some things in Birmingham which are as good as it is possible to be.