Word: townes
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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When I arrived in Alabama, however, I was surprised. It looked just like the real world. Montgomery and Birmingham could have been in any other state; and even the legendary Selma looked like any Midwest commercial town. There were no border guards to weed out Northerners who had come to meddle; thick-necked police didn't roam the strets with electric cattle prods; Negroes walked on the sidewalks and not in the gutters. There were more Wallace posters, of course, and the bookstands seemed notably short of books like Black Power. But if Alabama wasn't Cambridge or Haight-Ashbury...
Those who deny the Southern intelligence have never considered the amazing ability of a Southern town to recognize Outsiders. Student-age people are instantly suspect, especially if they are wearing the standard-issue Civil Rights Worker uniform (blue jeans, t-shirt) and have "hippie communist" hair (i.e., long enough so the scalp doesn't show). When one of these creatures appears in town, locals gather quickly. If he speaks in strange and foreign tongues, he becomes the target of a public drive to oust him. And if he commits the ultimate heresy of talking to or LIVIN' WITH NIGGERS...
...weekly visits to the county welfare office and threatened to bring down the might of the Federal Government unless welfare officials stopped discriminating against Negroes. Selma, of course, had responded, doing everything it could to make the White Niggers--and the black ones too--uncomfortable when they came to town. "Your parents and your grandparents are gonna be so ashamed," they would hiss at the workers. "Someday they's gonna find out you been livin' with niggers and making' trouble." Others were more direct. "You goddam white niggers," they would say. "Why dontcha just get out of here and leave...
...events at the Silver Moon were more frightening than any of the routine humiliations on the street. Evenings in Selma can get pretty tedious, and on the night that I drove into town Ted had left for a walk. He brought along his camera, and had slyly decided to take pictures of some of Selma's seamier scenes. After episodes of photographing alleys, dual entrances at theaters, and "Motel for Colored" signs, Ted headed to the Silver Moon. About ten minutes after I had finished my greasy coffee there, Ted strolled by. Ted was usually pretty circumspect in his anti...
Everyone perked up at this suggestion, and all four joined in. "We're a fixing to kill us a nigger-lover. Let's kill a nigger-lover." This on the main street of Selma, a town of 30,000, at 6 o'clock on a Saturday evening...