Alabama Noir

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There must be places like Hawaii where the idea of noir would be difficult to accommodate. Sunshine, drinks in a coconut, warm beaches, and leis do not generate the fear, darkness, and despair on which noir thrives.

Alabama also has plenty of sunshine, some lovely beaches, and only a few foggy waterfronts where miscreants lurk, but it has been a famously dark place. Americans of a certain age read in their daily papers about the burning of the Freedom Riders’ bus in Anniston and about the KKK beating those riders at the Birmingham and Montgomery bus stations in May 1961, with the silent cooperation of law enforcement. Americans actually watched, on the evening news, the German shepherds and fire hoses used on demonstrators in Birmingham and the violence at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

These days, Alabama has truly turned a corner on race, but the past will not, should not, and in fact cannot be forgotten. We are aware of the past here on a daily basis.

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