BIRMINGHAM, AL.- On December 5, the Birmingham Museum of Art will open an exhibition designed to open 21st century eyes to an astounding, if little-known phenomenon in the history of African-American art: The Spiral Collective. Spiral was the name taken by a group of artists, including Romare Bearden, Reggie Gammon, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis, Hale Woodruff, Richard Mayhew, and Emma Amos who came together in New York in the 1960s, and took on the challenge of creating art that responded to the Civil Rights Movement. The collective existed for only a short time, yet each member of the group, working on their own and together, produced powerful works that testified not only to the common themes arising from the struggle for human rights, but to the divergent ways different artists would seek to address those themes. The exhibition Spiral: Perspectives on An African American Art Collective, is the first time the works of those