stormy weather

I was in Meridian, Mississippi, last night, on my southern road trip. The hotel was on a rise so, in the morning, I had a nice view of downtown. I probably would have preferred being downtown but El Norte Authentic Mexican Restaurant was a short (if not particularly pleasant) walk from the hotel. Today's goal was heading to Montgomery so I read a bit of Meridian history and took off for Alabama. I stopped at the Alabama Welcome Center and got the official state map, a brochure on Montgomery with map, and a brochure on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail (National Park Service).

Map reading had indicated that U.S. 80 goes across Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma. The map seemed to have both a through-town and a bypass route for 80. Somehow I missed the through-town route and found myself on the eastern side of Selma. I carried on.

Midway between Selma and Montgomery is the Lowndes Interpretive Center which has various materials on the Trail as well as a shop and restrooms. As I was leaving, a local storm alert came across the wires to the various rangers at the site. What I heard is that the local tornado watch was for the next hour and would be lifted at 12:30. I got my book and tried to read but got restless after a while, especially after hearing that the state alerts would last until 5 pm. Another couple folks had decided to keep pressing on to Montgomery and a young woman headed out toward Selma. One of the other rangers suggested we were still pretty well ahead of the storm so I took off for Montgomery.

When I got to Montgomery, I was having trouble finding the National Memorial for Peace and Justice so I parked to check the map and online, just as it started to rain ... and hail and blow and lightning and a bit of thunder. Not much hail (or maybe it was twigs) but the rain was pelting. The car was shaking in the wind. When it seemed to let up a bit, I drove the few blocks to the memorial. When I got there, they had closed the memorial until the storm passed but the nearby Equal Justice Institute interpretive center was open.

I have now seen pictures of the tornado damage in Selma. A little too close for comfort. I think I had heard of the Selma tornado by the time they reopened the memorial. The still stormy sky and the wet ground added drama to the visit. The memorial is familiarly known as "the lynching museum." There are weathering steel (aka COR-TEN) blocks hanging from the ceiling of the open-air structure. The blocks have a county name and a list of the persons who were lynched in that county. Along the side walls are plaques that have short narratives on the cause of a person's lynching. I don't mean to sound too matter-of-fact about this description. The memorial is powerful and provoking, another of the compelling designs of MASS Design Group. There are also plaques describing truth and reconciliation measures by various jurisdictions.

Pictures from when they reopened the memorial after the storm had mostly passed and later as I left the memorial and the skies had cleared in the west.