““Whatever archive or courthouse we visited in Huntsville left one impression on me above all others. There was a huge mural tracing Alabama history. It started with the Native Americans - the Cherokees in the Northeast, the Creeks across the East, the Choctaws in the Southwest, and the Chickasaws in the Northwest. It then moved on to planter after judge after governor after businessman, as if that's all Alabama history was - a series of successful white men who came after the removal of noble, civilized, but still-in-the-way savages. There was not one black man or woman on that mural. For all of our suffering and sacrifice, turmoil and toil, it was like we never even existed, or - better yet - built Alabama.””
