Selma: Once notorious, river town redeems itself as a beacon of history

Roughly four hours west of Atlanta is the city that once called itself the queen of the Black Belt. A trip there is a voyage to the heart of the South.

Selma, Ala., is the site of an old and gracious architecture, where Italianate and Victorian houses more than a century old sit under live oak trees drenched in Spanish moss. Selma is also the site, during the civil rights movement, of a viciousness that culminated in the 1965 Bloody Sunday beating of marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

As you cross the steep hump of the Pettus Bridge and enter Selma, look to the left and you will see the National Voting Rights Museum & Institute, which details the struggle to gain the vote for African-Americans and to end segregation in Selma. In the other direction, just two blocks away, is another bit of history — the St. James Hotel. And not far from the river is a funky little store where you can see some striking folk art.

All are worth a visit.

Don’t Miss

• National Voting Rights Museum & Institute. Inside the small foyer of the Voting Rights Museum is a wall of little sticky notes — some faded, some fresh — with brief comments and names. Each is printed with the words “I Was There.”

One says: “For my mother, Viola Liuzzo. She came, she marched and she died for what she believed in.” It is signed “Mary Liuzzo Ashley” and dated Nov. 11, 2000.

A peaceful march planned by civil rights organizers in March 1965 was turned back by law enforcement officials, who beat and tear-gassed the crowd. In separate incidents during this period of civil rights agitation, three people were shot dead, two in Selma and one in nearby Marion. Viola Liuzzo, a white woman from Detroit, was one of them.

Unlike the large, sophisticated Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, the Selma museum is modest, consisting of several small rooms, but it has an immediacy and intensity unmatched elsewhere. Newspaper headlines tell part of the story: “March Time Set Here for 10 a.m.” “King Allots 14 Miles Today for Marchers.”

One room replicates a jail cell, reminiscent of the one in which many nonviolent protesters were held. Another includes a display of Sheriff Jim Clark’s shirt, badge and cattle prod. Another room is devoted to the women who fought for black civil rights. At the back of the museum is a simple chapel-like room with two worn wooden pews and a window opening onto the river. Jimmy Lee Jackson, shot by Sheriff’s Deputy W.B. Fowler, is among the people memorialized there in pictures.

Other museums worth visiting include the Slavery and Civil War Museum, featuring exhibits that tell the story of enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas, and the Old Depot Museum, an interpretive history museum in an 1891 railway depot featuring artifacts from pre-history Native Americans through the Voting Rights era.

• St. James Hotel. Located high on the bank of the Alabama River, this is one of the last riverfront hotels in the Southeast, according to Historic Hotels of America. Built in 1837, it flourished when Selma was a hub of commerce, back when cotton was king and the river was the highway. Sit in the bar with its marble-topped tables and dark wood furniture and imagine Wild West outlaw Jesse James passing through — a story that is part of the hotel lore.

• Sturdivant Hall. Explore Selma’s graceful architecture with a cruise through the Old Town area. A brochure available at the tourist office on Selma Avenue offers a self-guided driving tour of the town’s history and architecture. Sturdivant Hall, an 1853 Greek Revival mansion, is the most regal of the town’s historic houses.

• Everyman Books. Visit the bookstore and ask to see the gallery next door, where you can see the work of nationally renowned folk artist Charles Lucas, known as The Tin Man. The Alabama artist builds large, whimsical sculptures out of metal collected from scrap yards. His creations are deliberately rough and rusty, he says, to illustrate that life has an ugly underside but that beauty can be made from it.

• Down-home cuisine. Once you’ve worked up an appetite, have a Southern home-style meal at the Downtowner Restaurant or Town’s Family Restaurant. Both offer generous portions in a modest setting. A friend describes the former as white Southern cooking and the latter as black soul food, although they seem pretty much the same to me.

But that’s life in Selma, where contrasting stories are told, of beautiful houses and bitter history — a town that seeks to blend the threads of its past into something new.

IF YOU GO

National Voting Rights Museum & Institute. 1012 Water Ave. 334-418-0800. $8 adults, $6 students and seniors. selmavotingrightsmuseum.org

Slavery and Civil War Museum. 1410 Water Ave. 334-418-4889, www.theslaveryandcivilwarmuseum.org

. Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Sunday by appointment.

Old Depot Museum. 4 Martin Luther King St. 334-874-2197. Mon-Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sunday by appointment.

St. James Hotel. Rooms $125-$220. 1200 Water Ave. 334-872-3234. www.historichotels.org/

Sturdivant Hall. 713 Mabry St. 334-872-5626, www.sturdivanthall.com

. Tues.-Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and by appointment. $5 adults, $2 students.

Everyman Books. 18 Martin Luther King St., 334-505-0951. Tues.-Sat. 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Downtowner Restaurant. 1114 Selma Ave., 334-875-5933. Open for breakfast and lunch, Mondays-Fridays.

Town’s Family Restaurant. 118 Washington St., 334-872-8283. Open daily, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Selma-Dallas County Tourism & Convention Bureau. 912 Selma Ave. 800-457-3562, 334-875-7241. www.SelmaAlabama.com. A tourist information center is also available at the Selma-Dallas County Public Library, 1103 Selma Ave. Open weekdays and Saturday. 334-874-1729 www.selmalibrary.org