Selma

I am very impressed by those of you who are able to keep this up on a daily basis. First of all, my “regular” day isn’t nearly interesting enough to share with anyone and I’m discovering that with just the two of us, I’m uneasy about readers getting sick of seeing photos of just me & Tom and... places. Oh well. This is as much a scrapbook for me as it is for anyone else so here we go…..

The base didn’t hold class on Monday in observance of Columbus Day so we decided to do a little "exploring" of our own. A lot of the students had headed to the beach but the weather was supposed to be crappy so we decided to do a day trip to Selma.

Historically, the town has a lot to offer and is the beginning of the 54 mile trail that follows the voting rights march that started at a church in Selma and crossed the Edmond Pettus Bridge. On March 7, 1965 as non-violent marchers crossed the bridge, they were tear-gassed, beaten and turned away by law enforcement.

The display was captured by the news media and came to be known as “Bloody Sunday”. Outraged protesters from across the country joined the marchers for a 5 day walk that began in Selma on March 21, 1965 (this time with the protection of law enforcement) and ended in Montgomery with 25,000 marchers on March 25^th. Many notable speakers including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the event and as a result, the Voting Rights Act was passed in May of 1965.

The city itself is sadly worn down. It looks as if they’re trying to re-start it with some upgrading of buildings. There’s plenty of gorgeous architecture to see but unfortunately a lot of the buildings are vacant. In the downtown area there were a few businesses that were open. Interestingly there seemed to be a drugstore and jewelry store on every block. Maybe the two extremes of a down economy.

We walked around the town some just to take a look. I’m a sucker for old churches of which there were plenty, but unfortunately we couldn’t get in any of them.

There was also an old cemetery (another favorite tourist attraction for me) that I’d like to go back and visit some time by myself to just wander around and read headstones all day.

We ran into a raucous rain storm on the way home. Coming down so hard we could hardly see to drive and enough to soak us from our garage to the back door. Glad we didn’t opt for the beach.