Less than an hour from Montgomery, Selma was an easy drive to get to but a sad sight to see once there. It looks like a city America has abandoned and forgotten with its many empty storefronts and decrepit buildings along the main road. Though the people we spoke with there were lovely, it left us with a feeling of sadness that we not experienced elsewhere.
The National Parks Interpretive Center just a block from the Edmund Pettus Bridge was small but informative and walking across the bridge and back while imagining doing it knowing that police and wildly angry mobs awaited you on the other side was sobering. The courage and determination of the people who walked from Selma to Montgomery in March of 1965 is inspiring and humbling.
The above photo and information sign are from the National Parks Interpretive Center of Selma.