3day!

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3day! Today is the third day, hence 3day. I woke up in Prattville, Alabama, a place which I never knew existed yet looked like everywhere else we'd seen. I've been thinking about that a lot when we've been driving, seeing just copies of stores, copies of architectural mediocrity. All of this sprawl looks the same, with maybe some more Waffle Houses down south then up north. Why is it like this? Why does it have to be like this? It's kind of ugly, but more than that it hits a nerve that we as a group have been discussing: community. I don't see a possibility of community at the Wendy's or Hardee's. It's an individual lifestyle that doesn't make anyone or any town feel unique. I don't know what makes Prattville stand out from a million other towns and thats a shame. More than a shame though, I honestly think it's a problem with this country. We need to establish community through the uniqueness of each other, not what fast food store briefly brings us together. I don't know how to address that, but I really feel the impact when I arrived in Montgomery. 
        
 Montgomery was a ghost town, abandoned on a day where it probably should have been anything but. We started at Rosa Parks Museum, which had my favorite continuous narrative of any museum we'd seen. It chronicled the Montgomery Bus Boycott in detail and even from a few sides, showing citizens, policemen, politicians, the like. One thing I took notice of was a white citizen describing his experience of drinking from a colored water fountain. It tasted exactly the same as the white one, he said. I don't feel the need nor have the time to explain his thoughts or my thoughts on those thoughts. What was important was that those thoughts were in that museum, and for the first time I grasped the connection, truly, between then and today. I know the defenders of segregation, and I know that if I don't act I could be one of them. 
         
We then walked to Dexter Ave. Church and the SPLC Civil Rights Museum. I noticed not just that no one was there, but instead why that was. I noticed it in Greensboro as well, but it was empty because of civil rights. Black people won equality and white people headed to the suburbs, leaving the city behind. To me, the city is where people can connect, at the bare minimum more than the sprawl outside of it. Cities need to be populated, and I don't know much about economics, but it seems to me that Alabama, and even the whole country, could do with integrated cities with good jobs. 
       
We headed to Selma next and I sort of was taken aback by it. It was a quiet small town, but it was shocking to see. It was poor and divided and surrounded by impactful history, so the result of it almost felt anticlimactic. The cemetery was beautiful and awful. I felt a terrible anger and lack of remorse. I was angry and restless. Traci has talked to me about organizing a march with fellow trip goers. Today has shown me the necessity of it, or something big. Things need to change. Enclosed is a picture of Kenya and I at the SPLC fountain. It was a nice fountain.

-Harry

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