MR: I shook off sleep and went for a jog. Selma had its hooks in me. Although I told myself that the racial division, conflicting views of history, and economic decline were not my concerns, I didn’t really believe that. I liked this little Mayberry. Its problems were American problems. If we could solve Selma, we could solve America.
As I trotted up Dallas Avenue on my way back toward downtown, those graves with the Confederate flags, adorable if I ignored their significance, were to my right. An idea kept tickling the back of my mind. Back at the hotel room, I turned to Tad.
“I know how to save your hometown,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. I was aware of how ridiculous my statement was. This wasn’t some heartwarming movie where all we needed to do was follow a plan and fix everything.
“Hear me out …”
It occurred to me that Selma’s problem was that its people were at cross-purposes. The town had some of the greatest resources in the world to attract tourists and teach the world about reconciliation. What would happen if all of Selma came together?
By now, we were at City Hall. I knew a few things about that place. Most of the orders against the civil-rights protestors came from there. But the mayor now was black. If anything, he would want to relive the glory days, wouldn’t he? He would be stuck on that bridge, right?
“We’ve been stuck on that bridge for over the last 50 years,” Mayor Darrio Melton said, folding his hands. “Yes. This is our history, but what does Selma look like in the 21st century?”
It was almost like the Mayor was reading my mind and improving on my vague ideas. He envisioned a future where the Civil War reenactors and the folks who put on the civil-rights bridge-crossing Jubilee came together for the benefit of the community. Perhaps, a new gathering place could be established.
“It could be a learning place,” the Mayor said, one that could take visitors “from the last great battle of the Civil War to that blood-stained bridge.” The mayor suggested change would come from the town’s citizens themselves. “People will remain the same until the pain of remaining the same is worse than the pain of changing.”
I left the Mayor’s office with a sense of hope. He was a politician and a politician’s job was to make people feel better, safer. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if conversations with his predecessors would have gone down in a similar way. Mayor Melton was only the third mayor since the long reign of Joe T. Smitherman, who was mayor almost continuously from 1964 through 2000. Maybe I would have felt just as hopeful after leaving a meeting with that mayor.