Selma

Uncle Bubba told me his thoughts on race with the lingering aura of MLK Day and February being African American history month. He mentioned that he’d been to Selma, AL many years ago and found it to be the saddest town he may have ever seen, or maybe more accurately, felt. He remembered driving west across U.S. Route 80 from Montgomery. He pulled into a gas station on the righthand shoulder of the access road at the approach to the Edmund Pettus Bridge that traverses the Alabama River. It was just to rest and get his bearings. There were some old brick establishments and storefronts that lined both sides of the highway, most of them vacant, and some less than reputable looking folks hanging around the area. In taking in his assessment of his surroundings he was suddenly surprised to see three placard monuments almost hidden behind the listing brick pillars of a large “Welcome to Historic Selma” sign at the edge of the road. Their black and golden bronze busts staring lifelessly back at him appeared oddly out of place against the weedy sandlot where they stood.

He pondered walking over to them from where he had parked his car, but had second thoughts in separating himself so far from it, not knowing the area. So he drove the 150 feet over to the monuments and looked out at them through his window. They commemorate the leaders of the 1965 Selma-Montgomery march and recalls in particular the reference to Bloody Sunday. It struck him again how odd that these formal looking monuments were in such an inconspicuous and informal place. 


Uncle Bubba pulled back up onto U.S. Route 80 and drove over the bridge into downtown Selma. He drove slowly along the first 5 or 6 blocks of two and three story gothic brick buildings, it’s not unlike any other old Alabama town. Bubbie is accustomed to being in areas of the deep South where he is in the minority as a white man among African Americans, so his drive through the area didn’t phase him in that regard. But the condition of so many of the old brick buildings with modern facades were seeming to crumble under their own weight, the dried mortar pinched out and missing; he wondered what held the bricks in place. Years of patchwork and paint could not disguise its age. He reiterated that it had been many years ago since he had been there and things may be very different today; especially with the influx of interest due to the movie "Selma”. It is not without understanding that the 20,000 people that call Selma their home take pride in it as any community in America and do their best to take good care and make improvements.

Like any old community there are grand examples of the area’s affluence in architecture; grand victorian homes and manicured lawns. There are also rows of small, plain, brick apartments that are most likely for the poverty level residents. As he drove past ancient churches and homes the buildings grew more industrious and even more unkempt. 

In Bubbie’s view, so much of Selma’s color palette, the prominent red of dirt and brick against the green grass and trees mask the underlying tones of history. He expressed how he perceived that Southerns were violent in their zealous objections to their treatment after the Civil War. Their possessions were burned and destroyed, their land was divided up and given to others; 40 acres and a mule. They and generations after extracted the ugliness of their rage on Blacks and they have been vilified for it. Uncle Bubba spoke of, now in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere across the country, how, in his opinion, African Americans are behaving in much the same way. They react to their perceived injustice with violence; so much like the white man they so despise. 

Uncle Bubba sees differences in people. He honors other cultures in accepting their legitimacy to exist. Some he understands, some he doesn’t. Some he condones, some he doesn’t. He reckons that he’s pretty much like most people. In Bubbie’s view, the things that separate us, the cultural divides, the moral convictions, the expositions and actions are the things that prevent us from peaceful coexistence; everyone is right, or at least they think so. Pressure for peace is still pressure. It compresses energy that builds and builds until a volatile reaction happens. Peace only comes from release. Coexistence only comes from respectful acceptance from all parties. As I left Uncle Bubba told me that, in his opinion, no one truly wants equality because it’s human nature to compete, to strive for dominance; what people want is equal opportunity, and to be left alone.