In the heart of Montgomery, there’s a small, cobblestone traffic circle that serves as the intersection for the city’s main thoroughfares. On one end, Dexter Avenue proceeds up a slight incline, passing King Memorial Baptist Church and topping off at Alabama’s white domed state house. On the other end, Commerce Street draws a straight line to the banks of the Alabama River, where a Riverwalk now offers visitors a view of the Gun Island Chute’s sluggish waters. Looming in the middle of the traffic circle is the 20-foot high Court Square Fountain, its dark exterior faded by centuries of Southern weather.
In my first few weeks here, this fountain represented an effective landmark for navigating a new city (the best biscuits in town are around the corner and a hipster coffee shop up Dexter gives me a taste of home). I drove or walked by the fountain’s dripping sculptures almost every day, chalking up slightly uneasy feelings engendered by its presence to an excess of fancy coffee. Beyond that, however, I didn’t think too much of it. That is, until a coworker and I strolled through Court Square on a particularly warm day (the heat index got up to 113 degrees) discussing the day’s fieldwork. As we stopped underneath a tree to cool off in the shade, a middle aged Black man called to us from a nearby bench, “Y’all must be tourists walking around like that. Either military or tourists.”
We explained the short-term nature of our time in Montgomery and he replied, “Come here, lemme tell you a little history about this place.” He pointed to a plaque underneath the tree, “That right there is where Miss Rosa Parks got on the bus before she sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Across the street is where the white man got on. Miss Rosa made it a couple of blocks down the road before she was arrested for unruly behavior.” He paused for a minute, then queried with a serious expression, “What y’all know about that fountain there?”
“Not much”
“OK well this is important to know if you’re spending some time down here. That fountain was built in 1885 and sits on top of an old well that used to be the center of the city. The plaque next to it says it was the ‘traditional center of commerce’ for Montgomery. Y’all oughtta know by now that ‘commerce’ here meant slaves. Montgomery was one of the largest slave trading cities in the South, and this traffic circle was the main slave market in Montgomery. The sculpture of the woman at the top of that fountain faces directly down to the river, where they would unload slaves and march them up Commerce Street to staging warehouses before they came here. The sculptures on the second level are sitting in that position because that’s the way they made slaves sit while they were selling them. Matter of fact, where we’re standing right now is where the white buyers would stand to bid on the slaves.”
A couple of weeks prior to this interaction, my partner and I spent a day driving to Selma, Alabama. A small town with an outsized history, Selma sits about 50 miles West of Montgomery, in the heart of the Alabama Black Belt. In 1965 (only 54 years ago), civil rights leaders famously focused their efforts to secure Black voting rights on this place, eventually organizing the legendary Selma to Montgomery March that catalyzed the passing of the Voting Rights Act. These are all things that are thoroughly covered in AP US History textbooks, along with famous images of Dr. King leading 2,000 people through the Alabama countryside and speaking to large crowds from the steps of the Alabama State House. I had read the “comprehensive” books, looked at the inspiring images and watched the award-winning movies like a good history student, but once I stepped out of my car in Selma, the limits of my education became clear.
The textbooks don’t tell you how intimidating the large black lettering of “Edmund Pettus Bridge” (a former Klan member) is as it looms above. Or how high the bridge is when it arcs across the muddy water below. Or what it feels like to have the bridge rumble underneath you, these days with each passing car, but once with the steps of 2,000 people seeking freedom. They don’t tell you how narrow the bridge is, with nowhere for a large crowd to run when attacked by state troopers. They don’t tell you how far 50 miles is, or how desolate the roads between Selma and Montgomery are. They don’t tell you that the marchers walked in the shadow of Montgomery’s Court Square fountain on their way to the Alabama State House.
After ruminating for a while, all of the profundity made me hungry, so I soon found myself in line at Lannie’s barbecue spot in northern Selma. The tiny soul food joint operates in a predominantly Black residential neighborhood, its only indicators being the small coca cola sign out front, barbecue smoke billowing from the back, and a fleet of cars filling the dirt lot next door. As I stood in line trying to decide if a “swamp burger” was worth the risk, or whether I could convince my vegetarian partner to go halfsies on a whole barbecued hog for $45, a few things struck me about the restaurant.
Lannie’s had a feeling to it. Something hard to describe, but impossible to forget. It was warm, but not because of the outside heat or the flaming barbecue pit. It was warm because of the greetings that people gave each other, and the laughing that came from the two elderly ladies sitting in the back corner, and the care with which people said, “How’s everything going?” It was warm because of the pictures of Mrs. Lannie and her grandchildren on the wall, resting above booths filled with people enjoying each other’s company. It was warm because of the cook, who yelled at me from that back that this is that “good kind of food that will make you wanna take a nap after.” It was warm because it was, and has been for a long time, building and sustaining a community.
Immense power exists in everyday interactions and, quietly and humbly, places like
Lannie’s have become cornerstones of neighborhoods, giving people places to convene, laugh, socialize, care and love. While sitting at a sticky table in an old brick barbecue joint in Selma, Alabama, I began to understand how something as momentous as the Selma to Montgomery March could have happened. People, with a sense of belonging and care for those around them, risked their lives to march over Edmund Pettus Bridge and its muddy waters below, through the never-ending Alabama countryside, and past the Court Square Fountain in Montgomery, on their way to writing a new triumphant chapter into the history books.
At the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum in downtown Montgomery, there is an exhibit that discusses the ongoing struggle for racial justice in the South. One of the segments points to the continued existence of language in the Alabama Constitution that calls for statewide school segregation. The passage was made obsolete by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board, so it really has no practical use. That said, in 2012, a statewide referendum was held to amend the constitution and repeal the wording. It failed at the hands of the voters, and that part of the constitution remained.
Even after my limited time in Alabama, when I read about the recent referendum’s failure, I was left somewhat unsurprised. This is where I heard people talk about the “inner-city” getting too big in Montgomery, where I had a shotgun pointed at me, where cops pull over a car with California plates to “educate” on how “things work in the South.” But it is also a place where people roll down their windows to talk to each other in traffic jams, mow each others’ lawns, eat collard greens and fried chicken elbow to elbow and end conversations with “good to see you, baby.” It’s a place with a painful history, forged by cruelty, greed and fear. But it’s also a place where remarkable bravery rose, and continues to rise, to confront its legacy. It has shown the worst of us, and it has shown the best of us. It is, wholly and truly, American. Whatever that means.